5e Gamer
by Shadow S. Korosu
Summary: An orphan who managed to make something of his life after winning the biggest Powerball jackpot ever, a billion dollars, dies saving a little girl from a kidnapper. Interested by him, an entity known as The System decides to grant him access to The Gamer, allowing him to live out his dream of living in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, his favorite game. Let's see how that goes.
1. Chapter 1: Epic Rebirth

**AN**: Over three years, I have no excuse good enough for such a long delay, especially when I'm starting a new story instead of continuing one of the three I already had. All I can really say is that I haven't had access to a computer for the past few years, A lot has happened that just wrecked my life, multiple times, and I'm still trying to recover. I've had no money to buy a computer of my own, since I barely have any income, but thankfully a family member of mine had a laptop that he didn't need and gave it to me, so now I'm trying to flesh out this idea that I have. Hopefully I'll get the inspiration to continue the others soon, and this one as well, because no matter how long it takes, I fully intend to see all these through to the end.

Enough of that, though, this is getting long enough. So, as usual, here's my one and only disclaimer. I do not own Dungeons and Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, The Gamer, or anything else I may pull from other sources in the future, I only own my ideas and the versions of the characters I portray in my story.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Epic Rebirth**

"There we go, all done for the day."

A middle-aged man spoke to himself in a murmur, typing away at his keyboard and finishing his work for the day. Rising from his desk, the man stretched and shut down his computer, looking at the floor to ceiling window his office had. This man was Damien Dominus, CEO of a successful pharmaceutical company, one he had created from the ground up after growing up as an orphan and getting a lucky break, in the form of winning the Powerball lottery. Standing at a height of 5'10 and weighing roughly 200lbs, he was a decently handsome man, with deep black hair that was beginning to gray at the sides, chocolate brown eyes, lightly tanned skin, a good amount of muscle, and a clean shaved face. After taking a moment to gaze at the city outside, he left his office and descended to the ground floor, exiting the building and walking to his car.

Before he could reach his car, a scream caught his ear, one of a child, and it felt like his heart had been gripped suddenly as his head snapped to the side, eyes searching for the source of the distressed cry. A little girl, barely tall enough to be eight years old, was bawling her eyes out as a masked man was forcing her into the trunk of a car. A combination of panic and fatherly rage boiled inside of him, as his mind briefly overlapped the image of the girl with each of his own children when they were her age, and there was no hesitation as he bolted towards the criminal. There was nobody else who could help, the streets were empty and the cops wouldn't catch him in time, if they had even been called by this point, he had no way of knowing if anyone was in a nearby building and had heard the scream. Just as they had managed to slam the trunk shut, he leapt into a tackle and slammed his full weight into them, dragging them to the ground as he began delivering blow after blow to their head.

Disoriented from the vicious blows landing on their face, and the initial takedown, the would-be abducter slipped a knife from their sleeve and took a wild slash, cutting Damien across the left side of his stomach, across his waist. The sudden burn of pain was enough to make him jump back, giving the thug the breathing room they needed in order to rise to their feet, albeit shakily as the dizziness of getting their face beat in hadn't faded. Pressing a hand to his wound, and feeling the heavy flow of blood, he knew that he had to take this guy down before he ended up bleeding out, and from the slight stagger of his opponent he knew another solid blow or two would knock them out. 'Fuck it, all or nothing!' Recklessly launching himself forward, the older man let out an angry yell, and the criminal met him in kind, pissed off about the wannabe hero ruining his plans, and the little brat who caused it with all her struggling. Feeling the sharp agony suddenly blooming in his torso, as the knife slipped into his stomach just below his ribs, Damien pushed forward and brought his right elbow crashing into their jaw repeatedly, his left hand gripping their shoulder and stopping them from pulling away.

When an almost sickening crunch met his ears, and his elbow was covered in something wet and warm, he knew their nose had just broken under his assault, and a sense of satisfaction gripped him. Pulling his arm back as far as he could, he blasted them with full force, his fist crushing their already broken nose even further as their head snapped back and they stumbled, the knife slipping out of his body and letting the blood rush out even more quickly. As they barely clung to consciousness and fell back, the kidnapper's head cracked against the trunk of their car sharply, and the darkness took them completely. The adrenaline leaving him, alongside a good amount of his blood, Damien dropped to his knees, placing his right hand on the trunk to catch himself from falling completely, and as he fought to keep his eyes open, his left hand went digging through the pockets of the criminal until he found the car keys. Hearing the cries of the little girl coming, he fumbled until he hit the right button and unlocked the trunk, watching it pop open and then lifting it completely.

Barely able to stand, pain shooting through him, he forced himself to stand strong for the poor child and offered her a warm smile, extending a hand to her while the other held onto the car to support himself. "It's alright, sweetheart, he won't hurt you, I beat him up for you. Come on out here, and I'll keep you company until the cops arrive to take you home." Sniffling and whimpering, the little girl gave a nod and crawled towards him, and as he remembered the blood soaking his shirt, Damien quickly knelt down and none too gently removed the coat that the kidnapper was wearing, steadily standing back up and wrapping the girl in it. Feeling his strength rapidly leave him, he held in a grunt of pain and effort as he lifted the child and held her to his chest, staggering away from the car to place his back against the wall and slide down to a seated position. Soothingly rubbing the back of her head with one hand, he used the other to pull out his phone and call 911, his vision swimming as he felt himself succumbing to the blood loss. Through sheer willpower, he kept himself conscious long enough for the operator to answer and inform them of what happened, getting confirmation that an ambulance and a police officer would be on the location in just a few minutes.

But as the operator spoke to him and tried to keep him talking to her, his strength began to fail him, his arm dropping to his side and darkness greeting him as his eyes slowly slid shut.

**Greetings!**

As the voice echoed through his head, his eyes snapped open and were met with a seemingly endless void of pure white, filling him with confusion as he looked around and realized he was suddenly standing, no longer covered in blood or filled with pain, and the little girl was gone. It didn't take a genius to realize that he had died, and it only took him a moment to come to the conclusion that the voice must have belonged to God. But he didn't understand where he was, exactly, it sure didn't look like Heaven or Hell, which meant maybe he was in Limbo? "Hello? Can you tell me where I am?"

**Of course. You're currently in The Engine.**

"The Engine? What?" Now that threw him for a loop, he hadn't ever heard of something like that in any religion he knew of. He wasn't the most devout religious man in the world, he certainly wasn't Christian or Muslim or anything like that, often told his beliefs were strange by anyone he shared them with, but he wasn't entirely ignorant of the other religions, and none of them had ever mentioned such a thing, to his knowledge. The closest thing he could think of was some sort of reference to a Speed Force Engine in Marvel, but if that had anything to do with this, he would eat his left testicle.

**You can call me The System. This is an area dedicated to the processing and reflection of The Game. You are my newly selected Gamer, free to partake in everything The Game has to offer.**

"The System? The Game? Slow down, wait, I don't understand what's going on. What are either of those things? Am I just some sort of simulation?" Damien could feel his mind racing as he was having an existential crisis, questioning his entire life and everything that had ever happened to him. Before he could get too far in his breakdown, the voice broke through his thoughts, soothing him for some reason. He didn't understand why, but he was grateful that it was able to calm his panic and ease his mind enough to listen.

**Of course not, you are real and so was everything else, don't worry. I'm simply granting you the ability to treat life as if it were a game, and enter worlds that, to your world, are fictional. Think of it as a reward, something you have earned for being such a noteworthy individual with such an interesting life.**

"A reward? Okay, okay, that's something I think I can work with." So, his life had been real, he was real, that information was very comforting and served to help him control his emotions a bit better. Being told that he was being given this ability as a reward was hard to take in, after all he had never imagined that some God-like being would ever look at him and give him a blessing of any magnitude, but it wasn't like he could deny this entity and what was happening. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he tried to focus his thoughts and after he felt like he had succeeded, he opened them up and looked up, not as if he could see anything, but he felt like that was the correct direction to look when speaking to this entity that called itself The System. "Is the girl okay? Did the cops reach her before that kidnapper woke up?"

**Yes, thanks to you she's safe and after a bit of therapy, she'll be able to grow up and have a happy life. Your selfless act of saving her will inspire her, and partially out of guilt for your death, she will become a very successful doctor, one of the best. Without your intervention, she would not have survived, and would have suffered greatly in the brief time she had left to live.**

"Good. I'm glad that I could change her life so much, by doing something so simple." Damien spoke after a few moments of silence, absolutely speechless at first after the knowledge of how his death had changed her fate from one so terrible, to something so amazing. A tinge of guilt ate at him with the information that his death had clearly scarred her somewhat, no small child would be completely okay after the person holding them suddenly died after all. But he managed to get past that rather easily, not letting it overshadow the good that he had done. "So then, how does this all work?"

**When you are ready, I will initiate The Game and it will take over, only if something requires my direct attention will I speak and interact with you directly after this point. You will receive a brief explanation from The Game and then things will begin. Are you ready?**

"I'm ready." As soon as the words left his mouth, a screen appeared in front of him, and as he read the words he could hear a new voice in his head, this one feminine as opposed to the gender neutral one from before. It was different, but he didn't focus on it and looked through the screen in front of him, taking in what it said.

**The Game of Life**

**New Game**

**Options**

**History**

Figuring that it was best to move forward and learn as he went, Damien extended his hand to touch the New Game choice before him, noticing that it barely felt as if he had touched anything, a lot like he had touched something like memory foam, extremely malleable and gave no resistance, but not quite the same. In response to his touch, a new screen appeared in front of him, and it was far bigger than the first, giving a massive list of options on what world he would like to enter, ranging from books, to movies, television shows, cartoons, anime, video games, comics, new and old, far more than he had the patience to scroll through. With all the options in front of him, a little spark of hope formed in his chest, and he couldn't help the slight hesitation as he voiced a question. "Is... Is Dungeons and Dragons an option?" In response, the screen toggled the **Games** category and scrolled through until it selected his request, opening into a smaller menu. Now, joy was blooming in his heart, a smile forming on his face as he scanned through the smaller menu and looked over his options.

**1st Edition**

**2nd Edition**

**3rd Edition**

**3.5 Edition**

**4th Edition**

**5th Edition**

It wasn't as difficult of a choice as he thought it would be, despite growing up through the editions and playing all of them he felt his gaze be drawn to the bottom, looking at 5e and following his gut, his hand raising as he selected it. With that choice made, another new menu appeared before him, giving him a list of all the available modules, and at the bottom was a **Custom World** option, which drew his interest. Taking a few moments to decide, he looked up again and voiced another question to The Game, since it seemed to respond last time. "Is this my only choice, or do I get to keep coming back and going through new options?"

**You will be able to choose any world you want each time a current game ends, and go through different options if you so wish. Also, I would like to mention that your interface will change depending on the world you are currently in. For example, your interface will be based on the D&D 5e ruleset since you chose that edition.**

Giving a satisfied nod in response to the answer, which was just a voice in his head instead of a screen this time, Damien selected the custom world, hoping for a totally new adventure that would surprise him, and experience a module in person later on. As the excitement continued to build, he was growing rather giddy, his eyes bright as all sorts of ideas ran through his head for his upcoming adventure through his favorite game. Brief surprise flashed across his face at the new screen that he was faced with, as it wasn't quite what he had been expecting, just a brief and simple question.

**Would you like to see your previous progress converted into this system?**

**Yes**

**No**

Seeing no reason to decline, especially with his curiosity now peaked, he selected yes and watched as a modified 5e character sheet now floated in front of him.

**Name**: Damien Dominus

**Age**: 53

**Gender**: Male

**Race**: Human

**Level**: 6

**Proficiency**: +3

**Strength**: 13 +1

**Dexterity**: 11 +0

**Constitution**: 12 +1

**Intelligence**: 13 +1

**Wisdom**: 14 +2

**Charisma**: 16 +3

Those weren't too bad, he thought, they were nineteen above average, and if he had the normal Human bonus of a +1 to each stat, and then a +2 from his level 4 Ability Score Increase, that would be 11 above average at first level, since the average commoner had a 10 in every stat. Which made him wonder if they either didn't get the racial bonus, or if their base stats were actually 9 before the bonus applied. Shaking off that thought, he watched the screen change in front of him once he finished reading it and was once again met with a combination of confusion and interest as he read through it.

**When you enter a new world, you gain a number of Customization Points, or CP, based on your achievements in the last life you lived. These can be used to purchase perks that, as I'm sure you guessed, customize your starting character and the world you're in, giving you more control and an advantage. You're also allowed to apply detriments to your current world, which will hinder you in one way or another and add an extra challenge, which will give you extra CP to customize that world. CP can also be stockpiled to save up and splurge on a specific attempt, they don't have to all be spent immediately after gaining them. Here is a list of your previous achievements, and your current CP for your first world.**

**Age 10**: +100

**Age 20**: +100

**Age 30**: +100

**Age 40**: +100

**Age 50**: +100

**Started From The Bottom**: +500

**Lucky Powerball**: +1000

**Spread The Medicine**: +500

**Selfless Sacrifice**: +500

**Good Karma**: +1000

**First World**: +1000

**Alpha Tester**: +2000

**Misc**: +1188

**Final Score**: 8188

**Personal** **Best**: 8188

"Wow... That seems pretty good, I think." Damien murmured to himself as he looked at his score, thinking that he had definitely taken a good path in his life. Once he was done gazing at his score, the screen changed once again, seeming to know when he was ready. The new screen that loaded up showed him a list of his available perks for spending his CP on.

**5e Perk Selection**

**It's Just A Game**

_1500 CP_

You're fully aware of the true nature of your new life, and can fully utilize the interface. You carry over all your previous memories and personality. Warning: This perk will cut your CP in half after completion of the world.

**Everybody Knows Me**

_500 CP_

You're a member of a well known and established family or group, causing your name to be known. This will give you preset relationships with certain factions and individuals, positive and negative. Some will hold misplaced grudges, others will be inclined to think the best of you. Be prepared for unexpected helping hands, and foots in the face!

**Feats For Days**

_100 CP_

This can be purchased multiple times, each one giving you access to one extra feat at character creation. These feats are still restricted by their usual requirements.

**It's Dangerous To Go Alone**

_500-1000 CP_

It's a dangerous world out there, and it can be nice to have a helping hand. This perk will allow you to create a companion who will travel alongside you and help to keep you alive. Depending on how much you spend on this perk, your companion will be more capable of holding their own. The base cost of 500 will give you a fellow level 1 companion, and every extra 100 will give them an extra level, plus adequate equipment for that level. You are free to choose their race, gender, class, appearance, subclass, personality, and so on.

**Better Equipped**

_100-500 CP_

You can purchase some extra starting gear to increase your odds of survival. Depending on the usual gold cost of the item, the CP cost will vary.

**Raining Gold**

_500 CP_

This perk can be purchased multiple times. Each purchase will grant you an extra 2000 gold pieces. Warning: Purchase of a Bag of Holding alongside this perk may be wise.

**Deeper Reserves**

_100-900 CP_

This perk can be purchased multiple times. You can purchase extra spell slots, allowing you to cast more spells than you should be capable of. The cost varies based on the spell slot purchased, 100 for a level 1 slot, and an extra 100 for each step higher.

**Spell Savant**

_100-900 CP_

This perk can be purchased multiple times. You can purchase extra spells, including ones outside of your normal class list, and they will count as natural spells for your class. If your class doesn't normally have access to spells, you may choose between Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma as your spellcasting stat. The cost varies based on the level of the spell purchased, 100 for a level 1 spell, and an extra 100 for each level higher.

**Legendary Item**

_1000 CP_

This perk will allow you to start with any one Legendary rarity item, which can give you quite a headstart in your adventure. However, if knowledge of you holding the item spreads, it may cause some unsavory individuals to try and relieve you of ownership.

**I'm No Newbie**

_500 CP_

This perk can be purchased multiple times. The first purchase will bump your starting level to 4, then the second purchase will raise your starting level to 8, the third to 12, the fourth to 16, and the fifth to 20. Each purchase will also grant you extra starting equipment based on your new level.

**Average Health**

_500 CP_

This perk will allow you to gain no lower than average health at each level when you roll hit die. D6 granting 4+Con, D8 granting 5+Con, D10 granting 6+Con, and D12 granting 7+Con.

**Lucky Constitution**

_250 CP_

If you would roll a 1 on a hit die when determining your new max health, you can reroll that hit die and get a new health maximum. This is stackable with Average Health.

**Blessed By Boons**

_750 CP_

This can be purchased multiple times, each purchase granting one Epic Boon. Custom ones are subject to approval by The Game.

**Two In One**

_1500 CP_

This perk will bestow the Gestalt variant upon you, allowing you to be two classes simultaneously and thus, reach max level in both. However, you will gain experience to level up at half the speed, as it is effectively being split between them both. You will gain the saving throw proficiencies, spell slots, and equipment proficiencies of both classes. Any overlapping class abilities will grant you whichever one is better for your build, and discard the other, granting you a free feat in the case of Extra Attack and allowing you to keep both in the case of Expertise, as well as taking whichever has better ASI's, but not both. Skill proficiencies will grant you the selection of both class lists, and whichever class grants you the higher number of skills, and hit dice will be gained from whichever class has the higher die, not both class die.

**Epic Potential**

_2000 CP_

This perk will apply a third party supplement known as the Epic Legacy Core Rulebook to your interface, granting access to levels 21-30, as well as additional Epic perks.

The sheer number of things he could give himself as a boost when starting off was incredible, and there were even more that he had either skimmed past or were greyed out for one reason or another. He could understand why it mentioned the option to stockpile CP, there were so many he would love to grab, but his 8188 hadn't amounted to as much as he had originally thought. Though, he was able to purchase a few of the bigger ones, which he would definitely be doing, especially that Epic Potential, since it opened up a few extra perks. So after scanning through the ones he had decided he definitely wanted, Damien selected It's Just A Game, Two In One, and Epic Potential. Once he had selected the third one, a few extra perks were added beneath it, which he quickly read over to see what they would do for him.

**Stars Given Form**

_1500 CP_

This perk allows you to be the Epic race known as the Atharan. This is inherently stronger than any normal race, giving you benefits that are otherwise inaccessible by normal means. Be aware that this is an incredibly rare race not native to Toril, and stand out like a sore thumb, which will undoubtedly draw attention.

_Epic Humanoid_: Your creature type is humanoid, and you are considered an Epic Creature.

_Ability Score Increase_: You increase four different ability scores of your choice by 2, up to a maximum of 30.

_Age_: Atharan mature at around 30 years old and can live to be well over 2,000 years old.

_Alignment_: Atharan can be any alignment, but tend toward chaos and the freedom it brings.

_Size_: You can adjust the size or shape of your body according to your preferences. Your size is Medium, but you can assume a humanoid shape of any dimension, as long as your size remains Medium.

_Speed_: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

_Language_: You can speak, read, and write Atharasil.

_Progeny_: Any children you bear or sire are always Atharan.

_Astral Shifting_: When you spend movement to move, instead of your normal movement you may choose to magically teleport 5 feet for every 5 feet of movement you expend.

_Imbued Attacks_: Your attacks are magical, and if your weapon attacks would have a bonus to their attack and damage rolls lower than +3, they instead have a +3 bonus.

_Perfection of Form_: You must designate a single ability score of your choice as your perfection score. Once per round, when you would fail an ability check or saving throw using that score, you may choose to succeed instead. Once you have designated an ability score as your perfection score, it is permanent.

_Subrace_: You have a subrace based on your perfection score.

_Viriban_: Atharan of exceptional physical power. Your form is always muscular. You are considered a Gargantuan creature for purposes of grappling and calculating your carry capacity.

_Celeritan_: Atharan of extraordinary speed and reflexes. Your form is always lithe and movement a blur. Your speed increases by 30 feet and can't be reduced below half.

_Salutan_: Atharan of great health and fortitude. Your form is always perfect and shows no sign of damage when you are injured. When you take 20 or less damage in a single instance, you instead take no damage.

_Capitiosan_: Atharan of exceptional brilliance. Your form shines with ideas of sparkling lights across your skin. When you touch written text, you can read its entire contents instantly. Additionally, when you roll a 9 or lower on an Intelligence check, you instead roll a 10.

_Prospician_: Contemplative Atharan who are considerate and patient. Your form is always tranquil and at peace, showing no sign of emotion unless you will it. You add half your proficiency to any ability check or saving throw you attempt in which you are not proficient.

_Loquian_: Bombastic Atharan of exceptional speaking ability. Your form flares with cosmic phenomena across your entire body whenever you are excited. When you succeed on a Charisma ability check against one or more creatures, you can choose to make those creatures frightened or charmed by you until you become their enemy.

**Heavenly Hellspawn**

_1500 CP_

This perk allows you to be the Epic race known as the Nephalem. This is inherently stronger than any normal race, giving you benefits that are otherwise inaccessible by normal means. Be aware that this is an incredibly rare race that should not exist, however they do look like normal humans and can normally be passed off as an Aasimar.

_Epic Humanoid_: Your creature type is humanoid, and you are considered an Epic creature.

_Ability Score Increase_: You increase two different ability scores of your choice by 4, to a maximum of 22.

_Age_: Nephalem mature at the same rate as humans, but can live up to 1,000 years old.

_Alignment_: Due to being a blend of Fiend and Celestial, Nephalem don't lean toward any particular alignment.

_Size_: Nephalem tend to have tall, slender frames, often 6'0 or taller. Your size is Medium.

_Speed_: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

_Heaven Sent and Hell Bound_: You can summon beautiful ethereal wings, which are pure white on top, pitch black on bottom, and grey in the middle, at will. When summoned, they have a base fly speed of 60 feet.

_Truesight_: Your eyesight is superior to that of any other creature, allowing you to view the truth in all things. You have Truesight out to 120 feet, and can see normally in dim light or darkness out to the same distance.

_Fiendishly Divine_: You have resistance to Fire, Necrotic, and Radiant damage.

_Magic Resistance_: You have advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects.

_Magic Incarnate_: You know the Thaumaturgy cantrip at will, and can cast it with no components. At 1st level, you can innately cast Cure Wounds, requiring no spell slot or components. At 3rd level, you can cast Darkness, requiring no spell slot or components. At 5th level, you can cast Revivify, requiring no spell slot or components. Each of these spells use Charisma as their spellcasting stat, and can be cast this way once per long rest.

_Languages_: As a Nephalem, you are capable of speaking, reading, and writing Common, Celestial, and your choice between Abyssal and Infernal.

**Epic Feats For Days**

_1000 CP_

This can be purchased multiple times, each one giving you access to one Epic Feat at character creation. These feats are still restricted by their usual requirements.

**Relic Retrieval**

_2000 CP_

This perk allows you to be the owner of an item with power far beyond that of a Legendary, though whether or not you can make use of it will vary. Some items are more sentient, and thus more picky, than others and will react negatively if someone they deem unworthy attempts to use them. Though, you can always keep them locked away somewhere safe, until you feel ready to safely use them.

"That's... My fucking word..." He couldn't see a list for the Epic Feats, Epic Boons, or Relics, but he imagined it was like selecting the Epic Potential perk, he would get a list if he selected one of those options. It was hard to tell how long he stood there in thought, trying to decide on what he wanted to do, before eventually coming to what he deemed a satisfactory solution. Overall, he would select the Average Health, Lucky Constitution, Heavenly Hellspawn, Relic Retrieval, and a single use of Feats For Days, on top of what he had already selected. It would come to a total of 9350 CP, so it was more than he currently had, but The Game had said he could take detriments in order to get more points, so he just needed about 1200 CP worth of detriments and everything would be good. With a plan in mind, he saw a secondary screen overlap with the perks one he was looking at, only for a split second before taking dominance in his view and hiding the other one.

**Lethal Rivalry**

_+100 CP_

You have a rival who's going to pester and inconvenience you for as long as you live, which may not be long if they have their way. Your only choice is to put an end to them, once and for all, before they can do the same to you.

**Bandit Bane**

_+200 CP_

Someway, somehow, you managed to piss off an entire group of bandits, and now they want you dead. They're not that big of a group, nor very organized, but they're persistent and may grow larger if left alone, making them a bigger threat than initially. It may be best to take them down as early as possible, unless you're wanting some sort of challenge.

**Publicly Denounced**

_+200 CP_

A respected group or business is unhappy with you, and they've made sure to let everyone know. Some will ignore their slander until they've decided for themselves, others will buy into it wholeheartedly, and more will be somewhat in the middle.

**Very Important Specimen**

_+300 CP_

A group of scholars have learned the truth of your nature, and they're desperate to get their hands on you and find out all your secrets. Thankfully they're not very large, but they do have some sway and resources. They aren't eager to reveal your secret to others, lest they lose you to a larger group, which is your only saving grace.

**Ticked Off Tribe**

_+400 CP_

A tribe of Barbarians aren't too pleased with you, after you've come across them and managed to insult them in some way. Now they're inclined to break your spine in the most painful way possible if you ever stumble upon them again. Try to see to it that you don't, until you're strong enough to prevent that.

**Underdark Ire**

_+500 CP_

You've been to the Underdark, and suffice to say that you're not welcome back, ever. You've made yourself hated by at least one of the resident races down there, and if you ever show your face, they won't hesitate to rip it off.

**Coven Crasher**

_+1000 CP_

Congratulations, you're the enemy of a coven of Vampires, and they don't forget grudges easily. They can live long enough to play the waiting game indefinitely, and they're good at it.

**Dracula, Dammit**

_+10000 CP_

Yep, that's right, the Big Fang Daddy himself wants you dead, and you're most definitely going to be if you make so much as a single slip up. He's the progenitor of all Vampires, and one of the oldest creatures in existence. There's a reason drawing his wrath has such a high CP bonus, and because of that you only get this bonus if you manage to survive at least a year in your new life without dying, so don't go taking this in the hopes for easy stockpiling.

As much as he would love to try and earn ten thousand CP, Damien didn't want to take the risk of dying too early to cash in on it and wasting the perks he had already purchased, so he decided to steer clear of that particular detriment. Instead, he selected Lethal Rivalry, Bandit Bane, Ticked Off Tribe, and Underdark Ire, which got him exactly the 1,200 CP he needed to afford all the perks he wanted. Once the decisions were made, the screen faded away to reveal the original perk screen, and left him at a meager 38 CP left over. Instead of going into a screen for him to choose his free feat or Relic next, like he expected, it instead took him to the character creation screen, which was designed like a 5e character sheet, with an empty character model in the image box. He wasn't confused for very long, as The Game spoke to him and explained.

**Since a feat can affect your stats, and the Relic is reliant on your stats, we handle the generation of the character first, to ensure that your decisions are viable for your build. It's simply bad game design, after all, if you were to choose a feat or an item that relies on a certain stat array, and then you're not able to support that. Now, how would you like to generate your Ability Scores? We have four methods that are used by the D&D interface, the first being standard array, the second being the normal roll method, the third being a standard point buy, and the fourth being a point pool. The point pool is a unique variant suggested by a different Player, where a d114 is rolled and the number it lands on is how many points you have to distribute amongst all your stats, with each score having a base of 1.**

**Seeing how with this method, you could potentially have all Ability Scores at a perfect 20 or a minimum of three of them at a 1, not counting any free feats, and the other three all at a negative modifier, this also comes with extra benefits. If you roll so high that any racial bonuses would be wasted, you gain an extra feat for every odd interval. If you roll so low that survival is virtually impossible, you will be rewarded extra CP for the longer you manage to survive.**

That was a scary thought, having half of his Ability Scores sitting at a 1 would render him incredibly vulnerable, but at the same time if he managed to roll high enough to max out his primary numbers before Epic levels, he would be a force to be reckoned with. Man, this was all so different from what he was expecting, but that was why he liked it, it was new, but still familiar, and that made it exciting. A grin was plastered on his face, decision made rather quickly, and he looked up as he called out his decision, even though The Game seemed to know what he wanted before he had to say it, most of the time. "Let's try out the point pool!"

**How bold. I like that. Rolling now.**

There was a faint sound, as if in the back of his head, as if he could hear a somewhat heavy die being rolled, before it faded and a screen appeared in front of him, with a number in the center of it.

**109.**

**How lucky, this will be quite a good first run for you.**

Damien couldn't believe it, his eyes were wide and practically bulging from his head, his throat tight and feeling like his heart was going to burst from his chest, running the calculations in his head as he stared at the massive number in front of him. He wasn't sure if his natural Ability Score caps were raised to 22 or if it was just for the purpose of character creation, and the natural caps were still at 20 unless the racial bonus pushed them higher, but he knew that if he assigned the points and racial bonus correctly, he could have two Ability Scores sitting at 22, three others sitting at a 20, and the last one sitting at a 19, which could be raised up to a 20 with his free feat. This was basically perfect, _he_ was basically perfect, there was pretty much nothing that he was bad at, and he exceeded normal human limits in two of his scores. As his mind raced with options, trying to think of what build he should aim for, and how he wanted to distribute these scores, he eventually realized something that wasn't being taken into consideration. He only knew up to level 20, he wasn't familiar with any of this Epic level stuff for the 5e version, so he couldn't plan ahead for his final build, what he would be at level 30. "Game, can I see the list of Epic level classes?"

**Certainly, Damien. Here you are. You may also look through the Relics now, to assist in your class decisions.**

Instead of the screen he had been expecting, a book had suddenly appeared in the air in front of him, the Epic Legacy Core Rulebook, with the front cover having what looked like a woman wielding a radiant spear in her left hand, standing on the head of what he thought was a white dragon, a massive slash through its neck behind her. The pages flipped open, revealing the index to him, which had a list of the different chapters, the second one having Epic Prestige Classes, which seemed like what he wanted. In response to his desire, the pages flipped open to the first page, which held the Ravager, the Epic levels for the Barbarian. Skimming through the class abilities and the different subclass abilities, he went through each of the twelve core classes, which proceeded after Ravager as Truespeaker, Ascendent, Primordial, Dreadnaught, Enlightened Fist, Crusader, Slayer, Grifter, Archon, Overlord, and Archmage. What surprised him was that after the Archmage, which was of course for the Wizard, there was another class that didn't belong, called Night Lord. "Hey, Game, what is this?"

**That is something you know as homebrew, intended for a Vampire class. As you can see, we're restricted primarily to the core classes for Epic levels, with this as the only exception, currently. This is because there was an individual who found a homebrew Vampire class that was very well made, and they personally built Epic levels for it. We found it acceptable and integrated it into our interface. In the future, it is possible that more will be added, as they are created and balanced.**

Giving a nod of understanding, he proceeded forward into the rest of the book, reading the entries for Epic Feats, Epic Skills, Epic Magic, Epic Languages, special rules that applied to Epic classes and beings, optional rules and interpretations of them, skipping past the Epic DM and Epic Encounters to keep some surprises and fun for himself, and then went through the list of Relics. Like with the classes, after he got through the list of Relics, he could see a slight difference in the pages, as it continued into a few more Relics. Assuming they were more homebrew ones that had been created by other people, he slowly went through the list of Relics again, marveling at how completely amazing they all were, and how dangerous many of them would be for him to wield. There was a set of gauntlets that seemed intended for a Monk, there was an instrument that was best used by a Bard, there was a flaming skull that he assumed would be best for a spellcaster of some sort, there was a glaive that wrecked shit like nobodies business, a buffed Deck of Many Things which was a huge no, and a sword that would cause a flaming apocalypse, to list a few. Finally, he settled on one that he felt would be a good investment, as it would provide him a challenge, it would be quite long-term, and it would provide an amazing pay-off.

**Soul Star**

A standard of Deific power is the ability to forge existence on a cosmic level. Some gods create worlds, others races and magic. But once an eon, a god sires a divine child. This infant must be nurtured with care under the protection of mighty beings, for a child can be raised to walk a dark path. A relic known as the Soul Star contains within its crystal lattice such an infant deity, awaiting a parent to raise it.

The origin of the Soul Star is unknown, but scholars believe it to be the orphaned offspring of a long-dead deity. The potential contained within is extraordinary, allowing mortals the chance to sire a god through extraordinary hard work, patience, and personal strength. The Soul Star resembles a magnificently cut gem the size of a melon, egglike in shape, with latticed filaments of fine crystal etched across its surface. Within its structure a shape can be observed resting comfortably, oblivious to the world around it.

Many seek the power of the Soul Star to change the world, for the god within is unformed and malleable. The personality of the parent will undoubtedly affect the infant, changing the face of the multiverse upon its birth.

**Properties**

While unattuned, the relic has the following properties.

_Caretaker_: You can "wear" the relic by taking an action to toss it into the air, where it orbits your head at a distance of 2 feet. Thereafter, another creature must use an action to grasp or net the relic to separate it from you, either by making a successful attack roll against AC 30 or a successful DC 30 Dexterity (Acrobatics) ability check.

You can use an action to seize and stow the relic, ending its effects. While the relic is worn, it causes the following effects.

_Cry of Distress_: If a creature other than you touches the relic, you take 55 (10d10) Psychic damage from the divine cries of the developing child. This effect cannot occur more than once per turn. If you lose possession of the relic this affect occurs again every hour for 24 hours until it is back in your possession.

_Godspawn_: Effects produced by the relic are Deific effects.

_Light of Innocence_: The relic sheds bright light in a 300-foot radius. You and all allied creatures in the area have a fly speed equal to your walking speed. Additionally, creatures within the area cannot be hidden or invisible.

**Attunement**

Unlike most relics, attunement to the Soul Star is remarkably easy. Wearing the relic for 8 continuous hours attunes you to the relic. While attuned to you, the relic gains following property in addition to its unattuned properties.

_Safeguard_: As a bonus action, you can move the relic up to 60 feet in a direction of your choice. The relic flies and is immune to all non-Deific effects that would prevent its movement.

**Bane**

While the relic is attuned, the child within begins to gestate. You must attend to the Deific offspring within through meditation, consisting of 8 hours of strenuous activity each day. Should care for the relic in this fashion occur daily for 3 straight years, it births a new deity into the world. If another creature attunes to the relic during this 3-year period or a single day is missed, the process begins anew.

If you do not provide this care for a continuous full week during the 3-year period, the deity is born prematurely, an angry and insane god. If born from this neglect, the deity does everything in its power to end you and those associated with you—the severity of the deity's attempt is at your DM's discretion.

If born under proper care, the young god quickly takes its place among the pantheon but remembers you as a valued friend and parent. It grants you any one of the following boons (your choice) at the time of its birth:

• You gain an Epic level in an Epic prestige class of your choice for which you meet the necessary prerequisites.

• You increase an ability score of your choice to 30.

• You gain two Epic feats of your choice.

• You gain proficiency in all skills and saving throws.

• You gain a single artifact of your choice.

• You gain 10 million gp.

• A single non-Deific creature of your choice is obliterated instantly and cannot be returned to life by non-Deific means.

• You maintain permanent telepathic communication with the young god, granting you the ability to discuss with it always and query it as with the spells Divination and Commune. There are no limits to the number of times you can use each of these effects per day, the spells never have a chance of failure, and the deity has your best interests at heart when providing you with answers.

This would be very risky, until a rough estimate of level 9 or so, he had a potential to be rendered unconscious if not flat out dead from the Psychic damage if anyone other than him touched it while it was floating around his head. Light of Innocence was the only trait that it had which could actually benefit him, and it would take a lot of time in order for him to tend to the child and nurture it, meaning that he could only actually be active for eight hours a day. Eight would be required to meditate with the baby deity, and another eight would be needed for sleep, unless he just went without sleep every so often, which was actually fairly likely as an adventurer. There was the option to just spend three years living alone in the woods, hoping that nothing bothered him as he tended to the Relic and waited for it to be born, but that was boring and it wasn't a guarantee to be safe, either. Finalizing his decision, he watched as the screen focused in on his blank character model, as bars and sliders appeared in order for him to design his appearance as accurately and as detailed as he desired.

Taking his time to ensure that he was pleased with his character model, since that's what he would be looking like for the entirety of his second life, Damien meticulously went through every aspect of their appearance, inputting his own name in the box and going with an age of 16. Once he was finished, he had a 6'2 young adult who weighed in at around 244lbs thanks to all the muscle they would be guaranteed to have. As described in the racial information, they were more slender than bulky, having the muscle very densely packed instead of bulging out in a very noticeable way. They had heterochromatic eyes, with the left one being a dark shade of red, and the right eye being a light brown, almost amber in color, and a thin red line went from the bottom of the left eye to the bottom of their cheek, mirrored by a white one under the right eye, like almost like tear lines. The skin was lightly tanned in color, and finally, they had thick black hair that was silky soft, and slightly above average length, reaching just past their eyes if going straight down.

Finally all finished with the character design, and now that he had selected his Relic and read through all the Epic class options and features, he was ready to select his classes and distribute his points. With a pleased grin on his face, he placed 17 points into both his Strength and Intelligence, bringing them both up to an 18 and using 34 of his pool, then raised his Dexterity to a 19, which used another 18 for an overall 52, then put 19 points each into his Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, raising them all to 20, which was a total of 57, using all 109 of his pool. Once the pool was used up, he applied his racial ASI, placing them into his Strength and Intelligence to raise them both to a 22. Then for the next step, he applied his class decisions, settling on Fighter and Wizard, gaining proficiency in Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom saves, and chose the Resilient feat, gaining a +1 to Dexterity to make it a nice round 20, and proficiency in its saving throws. Figuring that they would be the most logical and helpful for his build, since he only got two skill proficiencies from his class, he chose Athletics and Perception.

Now the next step was deciding on what background he wanted, both for the extra proficiency bonuses, as well as the starting equipment and feature. Being a Gestalt character, he didn't get any class equipment, with the exception of his spellbook, instead getting the max amount of gold from his richer class gold, which he would have to use to purchase his other gear. It took a bit of debating, as there weren't many he found very fitting when his race was taken into consideration, but in the end he settled on being a Sage, gaining Arcana and History which were both useful, and he decided on being a Wizard's apprentice. For his languages, he chose Abyssal from his race, and Draconic and Elven from his background, watching as the screen moved to his spell list next, giving him three cantrips and six spells that were in his book. For the cantrips, he went with Chill Touch, Message, and Prestidigitation, getting Thaumaturgy for free from his race, and for the 1st level spells he ended up picking Catapult, Chromatic Orb, Comprehend Languages, Identify, Shield, and Sleep, plus the innate Cure Wounds, satisfied with the versatility.

Thanks to his high Intelligence score, he was able to have all of them prepared as well, so he didn't have to worry about making those decisions just yet. He also got to design his spellbook, which he decided to give the simple appearance of a small, black leather notebook, figuring if he had to, he could always get a new one in the future. Next he was asked to choose his Fighting Style for Fighter, and he went with Dueling, to get that extra damage and take down enemies faster. Next was spending his 210 gold pieces on his starting equipment, the first purchase being a simple crystal Arcane Focus for 10 gold, followed by an explorer's pack and a tent for 12 more, a basic longsword for 15, a shield for 10, and finally studded leather for 45, a grand total of 92 spent, leaving him with 118 on his person. Looking everything over, Damien realized that he was finally finished, everything had been completed and now, he was ready to enter this new world, this new life, and actually live out his dream of going on a D&D adventure.

**Character creation completed. Begin game?**

**Yes**

**No**

Reaching forward, his hand shaking with excitement, Damien selected yes, and was engulfed by a flash of white light. He could feel himself changing in an instant, his entire body altered to become that of a Nephalem. Knowledge was entering his brain, formulas for his spells, the life he had lived in this world for sixteen years, his master who taught him magic, how to speak the languages he knew. Muscle memory from his practice with his sword, how to use his wings, the hand movements to cast his spells. As his eyes opened, and he saw the ceiling above him, Damien could do nothing but grin in unadulterated joy.

His adventure had begun.

* * *

**AN**: And that's the end of chapter one, which is also the prologue! I'm sorry if it's a bit boring, with all the setup and such, I just wanted to give you all a solid description of the system I will be using and how it differs from the core 5e rules. And I know that there will be complaints about how I'm making the character super broken right out of the gate, and I want to inform you that I did _**not**_ plan this at all. Dice rolls will be affecting pretty much everything about this story, and as you can see, they have already done so to a major degree. I did dice rolls to decide his starting CP, and I did actually roll the d114, using a Discord dice bot called Avrae for both.

He could've easily ended up completely powerless, with a terrible starting CP and terrible starting stats, and in future games he almost certainly will. But, for this first world, this is a custom world that I've created and have used for D&D games that I'm currently DM'ing. Also, I actually did create the Nephalem race, using the Atharan race from the Epic Legacy Core Rulebook as a sort of reference, and I did design the Night Lord levels for the Vampire class, though I did not create the base class.

Hopefully I'll be able to get out a new chapter for this story every week or two, and I'll be focusing on this one for now. I fully intend to resume my other stories at some point, but for now I feel like this should be my main focus, it'll likely be easier to write. And again, dice rolls will be made whenever I feel they're necessary, such as for skill checks and random encounters, as well as attack rolls and damage. He could potentially die in the next chapter, or he could live all the way to level 30, I have no clue! Finally, I'll be leaving his character sheet right below, and at the bottom of each chapter where he levels up, or I feel it's necessary to show it.

Asterisks next to skills signify proficiency in them. Asterisks next to spells signify they're from his race.

Name: Damien Dominus

EXP: 0

Level: 1

Class: Fighter/Wizard

Type:

Background: Sage

Alignment: CG

Race: Nephalem

Max Health: 15

Current Health: 15

Speed: 30, 60 fly

Initiative: +5

AC: 17 (19)

Hit die: 1d10

Proficiency: +2

Strength: 22 +6

Dexterity: 20 +5

Constitution: 20 +5

Intelligence: 22 +6

Wisdom: 20 +5

Charisma: 20 +5

Melee: +8

Spells: +8

Spell DC: 16

Languages: Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Elven

Passive Perception: 17

**Proficiencies**

*Strength Saving Throw: +8

*Dexterity Saving Throw: +7

*Constitution Saving Throw: +7

*Intelligence Saving Throw: +8

*Wisdom Saving Throw: +7

Charisma Saving Throw: +5

(Dex)Acrobatics: +5

(Wis)Animal Handling: +5

*(Int)Arcana: +8

*(Str)Athletics: +8

(Cha)Deception: +5

*(Int)History: +8

(Wis)Insight: +5

(Cha)Intimidation: +5

(Int)Investigation: +6

(Wis)Medicine: +5

(Int)Nature: +6

*(Wis)Perception: +7

(Cha)Performance: +5

(Cha)Persuasion: +5

(Int)Religion: +6

(Dex)Sleight of Hand: +5

(Dex)Stealth: +5

(Wis)Survival: +5

Armor: All

Weapons: All

Tools:

**Racial Abilities**

_Epic Humanoid_: Your creature type is humanoid, and you are considered an Epic creature.

_Ability Score Increase_: You increase two different ability scores of your choice by 4, to a maximum of 22. (Strength and Intelligence)

_Age_: Nephalem mature at the same rate as humans, but can live up to 1,000 years old.

_Alignment_: Due to being a blend of Fiend and Celestial, Nephalem don't lean toward any particular alignment.

_Size_: Nephalem tend to have tall, slender frames, often 6'0 or taller. Your size is Medium.

_Speed_: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

_Heaven Sent and Hell Bound_: You can summon beautiful ethereal wings, which are pure white on top, pitch black on bottom, and grey in the middle, at will. When summoned, they have a base fly speed of 60 feet.

_Truesight_: Your eyesight is superior to that of any other creature, allowing you to view the truth in all things. You have Truesight out to 120 feet, and can see normally in dim light or darkness out to the same distance.

_Fiendishly Divine_: You have resistance to Fire, Necrotic, and Radiant damage.

_Magic Resistance_: You have advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects.

_Magic Incarnate_: You know the Thaumaturgy cantrip at will, and can cast it with no components. At 1st level, you can innately cast Cure Wounds, requiring no spell slot or components. At 3rd level, you can cast Darkness, requiring no spell slot or components. At 5th level, you can cast Revivify, requiring no spell slot or components. Each of these spells use Charisma as their spellcasting stat, and can be cast this way once per long rest.

_Languages_: As a Nephalem, you are capable of speaking, reading, and writing Common, Celestial, and your choice between Abyssal and Infernal.

**Class Abilities**

Dueling, Second Wind

Spellcasting, Arcane Recovery

**Feats**

Researcher, Resilient (Dexterity)

**Equipment**

Longsword, studded leather, shield, arcane focus, tent, explorer's pack, a bottle of black ink, a quill, a small knife, a letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer, a set of common clothes, Soul Star, 118 gold,

**Spells**

Cantrips: Chill Touch, Message, Prestidigitation, *Thaumaturgy

1st level: Catapult, Chromatic Orb, Comprehend Languages, *Cure Wounds, Identify, Shield, Sleep

1st slots: 2 (2)

Levels: Level 1 feat took Resilient


	2. Chapter 2: Magical Beginning

**AN**: Here comes the second chapter! I'm starting on this just about two or three hours after publishing the first one, not sure when it'll be completed though. If I get any reviews or messages that I'd like to answer, I'll be sure to do so at the bottom.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Magical Beginning**

Taking a moment to filter through his memories, Damien watched the major points of the life which had gone on auto-pilot before his consciousness was inserted into the character he had created. Due to his heritage, he had no clue who his parents were, his first memory being when he was barely a year old and living in an orphanage, the matrons doing their best to take care of him and all the other children. From what he had been told by them, they had simply found him swaddled in some blankets on their front porch one morning, and nobody had seen him get dropped off, so there were no clues as to his parents identities or where he came from. Growing up, he had taken a great interest and reading every book he could get his hands on, which led to his fairly detailed knowledge of the world he was living in. The name of the planet was still Toril, and the continent he lived on was named Yuntal, which was believed to be the only continent on the planet, and thus the only source of any intelligent life.

The interesting bit was that Yuntal was split into five territories. These five territories had existed for five era's, specifically 540 years. The central territory was called Grandus, the human territory with a primarily human population, and the one he lived in. The western territory was the port city of Nemoro, a mash of races with no primary population. The southern territory was the Gnome capital of Corash, where they made advancements in Magitech.

The eastern territory was the Elven capital of Kreshvin, situated in a large forest. The northern territory was the Dwarf capital of Kraggmar, situated in the middle of a mountain range. Roughly an equal distance from Kraggmar, Kreshvin, and Grandus, was the Divine Blades HQ, the Paladin organization. Roughly an equal distance from Grandus, Nemoro, and Corash, was the HQ of The Faithful, the Cleric organization. Dragons and Giants were believed to be myths that don't exist, though people are more open to Giants because of Goliath's and Firbolg.

The Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian pantheons didn't seem to exist, either, though all the other pantheons were acknowledged and had worship in one way or another. His knowledge went a bit more in depth than that, but that wasn't very important at the current moment, so he brushed past it and focused on the more recent stuff. Alongside his love for gathering knowledge, he had proven to be very physically adept, which caught the attention of an old soldier who had settled down into the retired life without any children of his own. At around the same time, he had met an experienced Wizard at the Xanathar's Emporium library, the largest public library on Yuntal, who took an interest in him and ended up having a conversation with him. Things progressed from there, the Wizard and the soldier meeting with each other and realizing that they were old friends from the military, before coming to an agreement, which was that they would share him as an apprentice so that neither his mind nor his body would go to waste.

All of this took place in the past year, when he was only fifteen years old, and so he had spent his life in a sort of foster adoption to the two teachers, spending three days with one of them, spending three days with the other, and then taking a free day to rest and relax. The old soldier was a Half-Elf named Krestin Taladriel, who was around a century and a half old, which told him that they were likely a high level Fighter, if not level 20. His teacher in the magic arts was a lovely human in her early 40's, who went by the name of Lillian Mullosk, and from his memories of her he was fairly confident that she was high enough level to cast 6th level spells at least. Finally sitting up and looking around the room he was in, he recognized that he was in her home, which meant that today was one of his days to train under her, the mere thought of casting magic filling him with excitement. Rising to his feet, he immediately noticed the difference in height between this body and his old one, which was pretty unusual to him even if he had the sixteen years of memories from this life.

Quickly moving past it, Damien gathered some clean clothes and moved into the bathroom so he could clean up before breakfast, and most importantly, hurry up and be ready to test out his knowledge and muscle memory when it came to flinging some magic! Warm water and plumbing was a thing, thanks to the advancements of the Gnomes in the field of Magitech, so he was thoroughly relaxed and clean after taking a quick bath, having scrubbed any and all dirt and grime from his body. Once he was fully rinsed and dried off, he got dressed, pulling on his black pants and light grey shirt, basic wool socks keeping his feet warm and protected, his common brown studded leather armor on top of it all, and a clear, clean crystal dangled from his left wrist on a bracelet, his arcane focus. Stepping into the kitchen, a comfortably sized room with a table big enough for eight people, he saw a bowl of warm porridge with little slices of strawberries and blueberries, a slice of buttered bread, half an orange, and a glass of milk already waiting for him. Sitting opposite of his place was Lillian, already sitting down and eating while reading what looked like a Harry Potter newspaper, the images moving in their little boxes as she skimmed it for anything interesting.

Without looking away from her page, she spoke up just as he was sitting down in his chair.

"Well, aren't you early today. Usually it takes you half an hour longer to get around. Something special that I should know about?"

As she finished speaking, she took a bite of her bread and finally looked at him, folding her newspaper over so that she could make eye contact with him, a curious expression visible on her face. Lillian was an attractive woman, standing at a height of 5'7 and weighing in at 130lbs, with brilliant caramel colored hair that fell to her shoulders in natural curls, and deep green eyes that reminded him of watermelon. Unsure of how exactly to explain the apparent shift in his personality and schedule, Damien gave a shrug and a chuckle, a slightly awkward but genuine smile on his face.

"I'm just in a good mood, I guess. I'm really looking forward to our lessons."

Her eyes searched his face for a few moments, and he remained as calm as he could, keeping eye contact when she looked into his mismatched orbs, until she seemed to find whatever she wanted and accepted his answer. With that, the two of them fell into silence and ate their breakfast, until they were finished and took their respective dishes to the sink and washed them off. Breakfast over, she led him downstairs into her training room for their lessons, where any accidents would be safely contained and ensure that the neighbors couldn't bitch about damages or anything of that nature. Anticipation was flowing through him, his hands clenching and unclenching out of nervousness, worrying that somehow his memories would fail him, or that he would wake up in the hospital and be told that he had been hallucinating after blood loss. It was really odd, to be worried that you had _survived_ and hoping you were dead, but here he was, feeling that way and being entirely satisfied with his death if it meant he could be right here, right now, the hero of his own adventure.

"All ready, my darling apprentice? Today we'll be testing your speed and accuracy with your spells, so on my word, I want you to start casting Chill Touch as quickly as you can and hit all your targets with as much precision as you can."

Snapping out of his thoughts when she spoke, he took a deep breath to center his focus, placing faith in his memories and The Game, before giving her a nod and readying himself for her challenge. With a small spark of amusement in her eyes, Lillian snapped her fingers and kicked the lid off of a box beside her, which also knocked it onto its side. Before it had even properly hit the ground, rats began scurrying out of it, seven in total had been released onto the floor of her training room. "Begin!"

"De manu mortis immensis avidos satiate!"

The words began flowing from his mouth without any delay, not even a single thought had been wasted, his faith well placed as the memories of his year training under her tutelage guided him. He watched as a spectral hand, skeletal in design, formed around the rat he had aimed at and gripped it, squeezing the life from it and only fading away once it was a withered husk. It was a bit morbid, and slightly upset him seeing how he was an animal lover and had pet rats before in his old life, but the exhilaration of actually casting _magic_ like it was second nature made it fade away soon enough. That distraction had cost him, though, as the brief sadness and guilt mixed with excitement and joy made him lose his focus and the lack of attention prevented him from noticing the other six rats rushing him. After he had killed their friend, they became aggressive, and a sharp pain in two spots of his left leg brought him back to reality, looking down and seeing that two of them had succeeded in biting him, the other four missing as he stumbled back.

In his vision, he could see a weird display overlapping with his current vision, not really blocking his sight but letting him see his current health, which was 13 out of 15, taking a single point of damage from the two that bit him. Returning his attention to the small swarm that he was now fighting, Damien quickly cast Chill Touch a second time, catching one of the little bastards clinging to his leg and reducing it to a husk like the first one. This seemed to only make the survivors even angrier and attack with more ferocity, as they all rushed him, three of them trying to bite his toes, and two of them succeeding in scratching his small injuries on his leg, making them a little bigger and dropping his health to 11.

"Dammit, you little shits!"

He hissed under his breath, barely noticing the amused snicker of his master as she watched from a few feet away, apparently enjoying his little scuffle with the feisty rodents. The cycle continued, with him draining another with a speedy Chill Touch that connected with unwavering accuracy, the surviving four failing to add to his injury as he danced around them on swift feet, a fourth one crumbling to his cantrip, then one of the remaining trio managed to chomp down on his big toe. A wince of pain was his only reaction, the counter in his vision dropping to 10 out of 15, and a fifth spectral hand claimed a fifth rat, then _another damn bite_ tore into the poor tender flesh of his left foot, dropping his health to 9, and he began to have a minor panic that his first day would result in him dying to a swarm of seven fucking rats. A spark of anger flashed through him, and as his next Chill Touch squeezed another rat, it wasn't just drained to a husk, it was reduced to a pile of ashes. The last rat tried to rip his toe off, lunging forward, but a spectral hand enveloped it midair, and by the time it reached him it was nothing but a husk, hitting the ground with a dull thump.

A small screen appeared in front of him briefly, which was half expected, after the counter that showed him his current health.

**Encounter Complete!**

**Results**

1v7

Adjusted experience: 210

Gestalt: 105

Progress: 105/300

'Holy shit, a few rats would've gotten me two thirds of a level up! Even after it got cut in half by Gestalt, I'm a third of the way there!' Before now, it hadn't fully registered that he would still be gaining experience like a normal D&D character, which meant he would be growing at a far quicker rate than everyone around him, like a handful of rats giving him a boost that most people would probably take years to get. If he had actually been in control during the past year of training, it was likely he would already be close to level 10 by now, a realization that was just mind blowing now that it applied to him in a world that was real. Turning to look at Lillian, she had a smirk on her face as she tossed him a small bottle full of red liquid, which he carefully caught and inspected, recognizing it as a basic Potion of Healing, thanks to his memories. Popping out the cork, he tilted his head back and chugged it down, noting that it had a surprisingly pleasant strawberry flavor to it. The sensation was astonishing, as he could feel and see his wounds rapidly closing up, the flesh growing and knitting together within seconds, and from the counter in his vision he could see that it restored six points of health, exactly enough to bring him back to full.

"The old rat trial, a classic. Tradition, you know, I went through it myself, as did my master before me, and his before him, and so on. These ones were especially vicious, though, I'm pleased with your performance."

The words brought a chuckle from him, and a tad bit of embarrassment after his slight panic, but they made him feel better as he approached her, looking around at the remains of the pissed off rodents. It wasn't really a huge surprise to him, he'd always known that being level 1 was dangerous in this world, but that didn't mean he was okay with the possibility of being killed by rats. Although, it did give him an even better appreciation of his high Constitution and his d10 hit die, because if he was a normal Wizard with the average 10 that a commoner had, he would be dead. Doubly so when he took into consideration the fact that he wouldn't have been wearing his current armor, and he was confident with his lower AC more of those attacks would've hit him. With all those thoughts swirling around inside of his head, Damien let out a low sigh and smiled at her, the thrill of what just happened leaving him in a good mood overall.

"Thank you, master. I feel like I could have avoided injury if I used Sleep beforehand, but that probably would've defeated the purpose, wouldn't it? Without moving targets and a stressful situation to test my ability to stay calm, I wouldn't be improving."

"There you go, using that big smart brain of yours. You know, I'm a bit jealous, what god did you please to get such a brilliant mind on top of having such a strong body? It's just not fair to be that perfect."

Hands on her hips as she fixed him with a glare, he knew there was no heat behind her words or eyes, his memories told him that she usually teased him about how he seemed to excel at everything he did. Rolling his eyes in response, he crossed his arms over his chest and grinned down at her, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he returned her sass with a quip of his own.

"Sorry, did you say something? It's hard to hear you from all the way down there."

"Oh ho, someone is getting cocky, aren't they? You just wait, I'll grab my stool and slap that grin off your face."

They both shared a laugh, enjoying the friendly banter between them, and she motioned for him to follow her back upstairs now that the combat test was finished. Lillian brought him into a room he was familiar with, her personal study, which was like a small library with a bookshelf against each of the three walls, and a table in the middle of the room. Books littered the table from previous days of studying, loose notes scattered across them and covering wherever the books didn't, and a warm feeling began to rise in his chest as pleasant memories came to him. Even if he hadn't technically been present when it happened, the memories and emotions still belonged to him, remembering countless nights where she sat in here and helped him study, bringing him ink for writing and food and water to keep him functioning. Already knowing what to do, he made his way to the table and got settled in the comfortable chair, and Lillian went off to handle her daily business while he went ahead with his studying for the day, surprised at how effective his 22 Intelligence was proving to be, making it incredibly easy to understand what he was reading.

And so for the next seven hours or so, he sat at the table, flipping through books and writing notes, studying the different biographies and lessons of current and past practitioners of magic, Lillian bringing him a delightful lunch of lamb chops, vegetables, and water. At about 4 in the afternoon, he was done for the day, returning to his room in order to relax and let his mind sort through and filter all the information he had went through. Stepping into the room, something in the back of his head told him to check underneath his bed, and though he couldn't understand why, he trusted his instinct and did so, getting down on his knees and searching. His eyes almost immediately locked on to an outline in the floorboards, and he carefully lifted them up, sliding a square section of the floor up and out of the way, revealing a magnificently cut gem the size of a melon, egglike in shape, with latticed filaments of fine crystal etched across its surface, and a shape within that moved ever so slightly every so often, resting comfortably. Nothing could describe the sight before him in a way that did it justice, the sheer majesty, elegance, and perfection of it was quite literally godlike after all.

"How could I forget about the Soul Star? I got so caught up in my excitement to cast magic, and my memories, I forgot I bought it."

Murmuring to himself, Damien searched his memories to try and figure out how he got his hands on this wondrous treasure, an infant deity, but there was absolutely nothing. It was just there, seemingly out of nowhere, making him question if The Game just tossed it there, into his possession, or if there was some in world reason for it that he had yet to discover. Whatever the case, now that he remembered, it was time for him to begin the three year process of nurturing the child within and ensure they didn't become an evil, insane deity. Gently scooping the infant into his arms, he lifted them out from under the bed and sat down in a cross legged position, lightly tossing it up and watching as it hung there, beginning to orbit his head from a distance of two feet, just like the description said. This first day likely wouldn't count, because if he recalled the Relic description correctly then he had to spend 8 hours like this before it would attune to him, and the three years of nurturing didn't begin until after he was attuned.

Three years with one of his slots taken up by the Soul Star was going to be challenging, it meant he could only attune to two other magic items until the infant deity was born, removing a few of his favorite combinations, but it would still be manageable as long as he went about things carefully and didn't stumble like a fool. Closing his eyes and breathing slowly, he let himself slip into meditation as best as he could, and spent the next eight hours in relative silence, the day passing by quickly once he eased into the attempt more properly. As soon as eight hours had passed, he knew, because he could feel as the Soul Star connected itself to his soul, a sensation that he could never have expected to result from the attunement process, something that was passed over in such a casual manner when one normally played Dungeons and Dragons. It was like a small tendril of divine power had coiled itself around him, the essence of his existence, and now he could feel it as a constant presence against his mind and spirit, almost like a blanket of warmth and innocence, the mind of the infant deity settling beside his own. He knew that this was a special instance, it wasn't like everyone connected themselves to a baby god and it certainly wasn't the same as connecting to a magical weapon or set of armor, and as he slowly opened his eyes he felt a wetness on his cheeks.

Raising a hand up to touch his face, he realized that he was smiling as happy tears ran down his cheeks, an understandable and reasonable reaction when one thought about it, and he could've sworn that he heard a small coo in the back of his head as the egg-gem continued to circle his head. Now that he was paying attention, he finally noticed the bright golden glow that was bathing his room, radiating from the Soul Star and filling him with warmth, and as he carefully plucked it from the air, the glow immediately ceased, dropping his room back into relative darkness. Damien couldn't help but just sit there and stare, holding the entity close to his chest for a few moments as he admired it, watching the shape of the child within as it made the smallest of movements every so often.

"Amitoj."

The name was spoken softly and came without thought, but it felt right, a name that entailed endless potential and meant that the individual would shine forever, and from the gentle feeling of warmth that briefly passed over him, it would seem that they approved of the name. A wave of fatigue suddenly coursed through him, reminding him that it had been a long day and he had to get some rest before he threw himself into a bad schedule. Cradling the newly named Amitoj, he grabbed a spare blanket before dropping down on his knees and slipping his torso under the bed, swadling the egg and tucking it back into the small compartment under the bed, easing the floor square back into place and hiding them. The last thing he needed was someone seeing the Soul Star through the window, or his master walking in and seeing it while he was asleep or off studying, and then dealing with trying to explain what it was and how he had it, or more likely trying to lie about it. Just as he began to crawl into bed, preparing to get some sleep, it seemed that wasn't meant to be as the world around him turned grey and his body froze, the voice of The Game filling his head.

**I would like to teach you a couple of the interface mechanics now, if that is acceptable. **

Unbalanced as his body suddenly unfroze, yet the world around him remained paused as if under the effects of a Time Stop, Damien stumbled forward onto his bed, his eye twitching just a little as he heard giggling in the back of his mind, questioning if it was Amitoj, The Game, or both. Giving a quiet grumble, he situated himself on the bed, sitting in the center and wrapping the blankets around him, before sighing in resignment and just giving a nod of acceptance. It seemed like things were being stopped, so it wasn't like he would be missing out on any sleep, and this was important information for him if he wanted to maximize his odds of survival and reaching his full potential.

**Wonderful. Firstly, you are capable of responding to me directly through your thoughts, you simply have to intend for me to hear them. I will not hear anything you do not wish for me to, unless it is spoken out loud. This also applies to the interface, it will respond to your thoughts and your intentions, so it won't accidentally be triggered and potentially place you in danger. As for the interface, it works as you generally expect it to. **

**To access your general information, use the command Status, and it will open a character sheet with all your information on it. For anything specific, such as Spells or Equipment, it will respond to those commands and show you that section exclusively. However, opening this will not pause time, so it is not recommended to use it during combat. Aside from this, you will also be subjected to the sleep mechanic, which allows you to fully recover from most ailments after a successful long rest, as well as heal during a short rest. Otherwise, most of your experiences will be a blend of the system and general logic.**

**For example, a bolt of lightning will spread through water and create an area of effect that may deal extra damage over time, a fireball will spread to flammable objects and potentially create a raging inferno, and spells will be capable of targeting anything you desire, as opposed to being restricted to specific targets as listed in the regular ruleset. All things that are either not possible, or are simply ignored by most, when playing the normal game. While it may differ from your own, this world does work off of logic outside of the rules of a game. Due to this, a unique mechanic has been implemented which allows you to create your own spells, attacks, and so on, called Signature Abilities. Using your skills, rolls will be made in the background whenever you attempt to create a new ability, the difficulty of which will be based on what you want it to do, and when necessary a reasonable cost will be applied.**

**When the required amount of successes are reached, the ability will be created and added to your interface menu. You will have a number of Signature Uses per day equal to your proficiency modifier, capable of regaining half of your expended uses back on a short rest once per day, similar to your Arcane Recovery ability, and all uses will be recovered on a long rest. They will function similar to spell slots, meaning you can have as many Signature Abilities as you're capable of creating, but you can only use as many per day as you have 'slots'. The next and final detail will be the function of a natural 20 and a natural 1, with the former being an automatic success only for attacks, and in rare circumstances treated as two successes, but in most cases it will simply add a +5 modifier to your roll, allowing you to succeed in cases where perhaps you normally wouldn't be able to, but still capable of failing against an obstacle that is simply beyond you. On the other hand, a natural 1 will count as an automatic fail on all cases, and a severity die will be rolled to decide whether it is a normal failure, or a severe and potentially catastrophic failure.**

That was a lot of information to take in, some of it being simple and pretty much expected, while the rest was a genuine surprise and left him with his eyebrows scrunched up in thought, running through the possibilities presented before him with the Signature Abilities mechanic. It made sense that he would be able to create his own abilities, otherwise how would all those other spells exist, like Tenser's Transformation and the Mordenkainen spells, spells that had canonically been created by experimental spellcasters? But it was still surprising to hear that he could create, theoretically, anything he could imagine as long as he took enough time to do so, with restrictions he would imagine, it wouldn't make much sense if he could create a level 9 spell without actually having the ability to use a spell that powerful. Other people likely had the power to create Signature Abilities as well, referring back to his previous thought about Tenser and Mordenkainen, but he imagined that it would be easier for him thanks to his interface. Next, his thoughts moved to the natural 20 and natural 1 mechanics, finding them a mix of disappointing and enjoyable, overall deciding that they were probably best handled the way that they were.

It prevented ridiculous shenanigans from occurring if he got a lucky roll, while still helping him out and letting him push past his limits to accomplish what was ordinarily impossible for him, and prevented him from being incapable of failing just because his skill bonus was high, while giving a fun challenge in the form of random severity. Always succeeding at something just wasn't realistic, or fun, there was always the possibility of messing up somehow, even the most practiced of people had a bad day, or bad luck, even if that bad luck was in the form of an outside source messing up their attempt. He was brought out of his musing as The Game spoke to him again, seeming to have just remembered something else to bring to his attention.

**Oh, and there is also a new toolset, known as Enchanting Tools, which will allow you to enchant items with magic using your spellcasting ability score. The nature of your enchanting skills will be limited by your level more so than your collection of magic, though you must still be a class with access to magic. Hence, a normal Rogue won't be able to learn Enchanting, but an Arcane Trickster would be capable of doing so, with a restriction to their 'type' of magic, meaning they can't enchant an item with spells or similar effects that are exclusive to a Divine magic caster, such as a Paladin or Cleric. Similarly, a Paladin who is normally restricted to 5th level spells, is still capable of applying a spell of 9th level or a similarly powerful effect to an item if they are a high enough level and have enough skill in Enchanting. **

Enchanting was an option now, too?

"I'm going to be so fucking broken."

* * *

After he had been informed of everything that The Game wanted to tell him about his interface, they resumed the world around him and Damien had gone to sleep, looking forward to testing out the new mechanic and creating his very first Signature Ability, not expecting anything impressive but excited all the same. Waking up to his second day in this amazing new world, he went through the process of his morning rituals again, using the restroom and cleansing himself before getting dressed again, pulling on the same set of clothes as the previous day after a quick application of Prestidigitation, for which he learned the words were 'Mobilitate re'. Being able to instantaneously cleanse your clothing with magic was really useful, and saved a lot of water that could be used for drinking, though you could use it to clean water as well, very slowly considering you could only clean a cubic foot at a time, but still. Shaking his head to rid himself of that line of thought before he got too distracted again, the Nephalem made his way out of his room and into the kitchen again, greeted by a plate of eggs, sausage, and a slice of buttered bread, with a small bowl of assorted fruit like grapes, cherries, strawberries, and a glass of milk. Once they were finished eating, he looked to her in silence, awaiting her instruction on what they would be doing for his training today, and that's when she dropped an absolute bombshell on him, his eyes slowly widening and his heart feeling like an odd combination of being squeezed and pounding rapidly, his brain grinding to a halt as he processed what she said.

"Today you'll be sparring against me."

"Pardon?"

Came his eventual, eloquent response to the steaming bullshit that just came out of her mouth, his gaze fixed on her in a weird mix of terror and a deadpan expression, which only brought a snicker from her, before erupting into full-blown laughter. Her eyes were shining with amusement, her left hand raising up to cover her mouth as her head tilted back, finding great joy in his fear for his life. Shaking her head, gradually she got control over herself, the laughs dying down into chuckles before tapering off into just a shit eating grin.

"Oh, dear Damien, whatever happened to that cocky attitude from yesterday? You're not _that_ scared of little ol' me, are you?"

Aside from a mild glare fixed on her, he gave no response, her grin growing even larger before she continued speaking.

"Oh, relax, I'll be going easy on you. You'll just be facing a Simulacrum of me, and they won't use any spells above third level, or Fireball. You can go grab your shield and sword, as well, this will be a test of _all_ your skills, not only half."

The assurances managed to soothe him somewhat, as those were his main concerns, being overwhelmed by her immensely superior magic and her considerably higher health pool. Even if she was a Wizard and had the smallest hit die in the game, she was still at least 13th level, seeing how that was when her class first got access to 7th level spells, which Simulacrum was. That placed her anywhere from 54 to 143 hit points, depending on her Constitution modifier and how high her health 'rolled' at each level after first, and that meant her Simulacrum would have anywhere between 27 and 71 hit points, one of which was much more manageable for him. Trying to work out a way to avoid a major ass whooping, he turned and returned to his room as she shooed him off to retrieve his gear, while she called in her Simulacrum that she must have made the previous day and got the training room downstairs prepared. Securing the round disc of metal to his left arm and gripping the hilt of his sword firmly in his right hand, his imposing image didn't match well with the look of worry on his face as he walked downstairs.

Standing across from him was the copy of his master, wearing a pair of white robes similar to her own, wielding a staff and dagger that must've been replica's, since he could see that Lillian still had a staff and dagger on her person. Standing approximately fifteen feet away from the duplicate, they were silent and still for a few moments, his sword and shield at the ready, and his opponent holding the dagger in her right hand, the staff on her back. His muscles tensed and relaxed as his fingers squeezed around the hilt before loosening, every instinct in him flaring up in concern over this enemy.

"Fight!"

Immediately surging forward, Damien and the copy rushed each other, both trying to get in the first attack, but he proved to be just slightly faster, and his superior reach assisted him in connecting first, the sharp blade coming down across the top left of her side, cutting down across her torso to her right hip. Whereas his little health counter was in the left peripheral of his vision, he noticed as he attacked that in his right peripheral he saw a '15' pop up when his blade connected, which he assumed meant that's how much damage he did. That was almost his max damage, only a single point away, and it would've been enough to drop himself to 0 immediately, a scary thought. As water and snow became visible in the gash he left across the Simulacrum's body, he watched as their left hand formed a sphere of lightning that was four inches in diameter, fear creeping into him. That could very easily drop him in a single shot if it connected, and he could only hope that if it did hit him it was a low powered one.

"Orbis elementa!"

As she thrust her hand forward, the Chromatic Orb shot at him and he dropped his body to the left, letting the weight of his shield help pull him, and as he called out "Ad formare obice inter me et nocere" an invisible barrier of magic formed around him, the ball of lightning streaking through the air until it slammed into the Shield surrounding him and dissipated. On his way to the floor, he made a thrust for her legs, watching as the tip of his blade just managed to stab into her right kneecap and a '14' briefly appeared in his right peripheral. Carrying his weight into his momentum, he tucked his body into as much of a ball as he could and used the face of his shield as a base, rolling upside down and then to his right side, before reaching right side up as his feet were beneath him again. He stood up to his full height again, regaining his footing and balance, shield presented in front of him as he held his sword above his head and to the right of his body, tip pointed at his enemy. As expected, she had above minimum health, because that was 29 points of damage she just took, and though it was hard to tell exactly how damaged she was, he knew it had to be at least around half based on the maximum he had calculated beforehand.

Instead of another spell like he had been expecting, the clone rushed him and jabbed the blade of their dagger towards his torso, his body tensing up as flashes went through his mind, the image of a masked man being imposed over her own body as he heard the screaming and crying of a little girl. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, and a wetness covering his stomach, a blade lodged in his flesh as blood was gushing out, soaking his shirt and making him feel weak on his feet, until he felt a surge of rage, a savage "NO!" tearing its way from his throat, and it was almost like an illusion being shattered, the scream fading as the sight before him returned to normal. His sudden and inexplicable fury caught both his master and her copy off guard, surprising them both, giving him just the opening he needed as he charged forward and used his shield the slam the incoming dagger away, his longsword biting into the left side of his masters Simulacrum, a small '16' letting him know that he had dealt his max damage.

"Quiescat inimicus meus!"

As the words were spoken, the briefly enraged Nephalem felt his entire body tense up, the sensation of some hidden force washing over him and gripping his form, attempting to restrain him and prevent him from moving. But he shook off the spell that he assumed was Hold Person, resisting it as he pushed forward and slammed his blade through their gut, burying it within them up the hilt as snow and cold water poured over his hand and blade, a '15' appearing in his vision as they lost cohesion and collapsed into nothing but water. Breathing heavily to try and calm himself, dispel his sudden rage at the traumatic memories that forced themselves on him, he was surprised that he managed to defeat the Simulacrum, even if it was half as durable as his master and hardly used any magic itself. Looking up at his master, Lillian had an impressive poker face, withholding her current emotions of surprise and curiosity quite well and leaving him wondering what her thoughts on the result of that spar was. Suddenly, the world went grey like it had last night, as everything seemed to have frozen again and a screen appeared in front of him, which made his eyes go wide and made him want to burst out laughing and cheering.

**Encounter Complete!**

**Results**

1v1

Level 14 enemy, equal to 1/4th of a CR 14

17,250 ÷ 4 = 4,312.5

Divided by 1.5 for Simulacrum

4,312.5 ÷ 1.5 = 2,875

43% of experience gained from enemy holding back in spar

43% × 2,875 = 1,236.25

Experience halved by Gestalt

1,236.25 ÷ 2 = 618.125

Rounded to nearest whole number

618

Progress: 723/900

**Level up!**

**Action Surge gained from Fighter!**

**Please select new spells and subclass for Wizard.**

**Please roll hit die for new max health.**

That must be why it froze time this time, but not after his fight against the rats, he got a level up from this fight. Going with the most simple one first, he opened his hand and a ten sided die appeared in it, which he then tossed forward and watched it roll on an invisible surface before stopping with the '8' facing upwards, bringing a relieved grin to his face. After adding his Constitution modifier to it, he received an extra 13 points of health, two away from max and nearly doubling his current amount, which left him sitting comfortably at a nice 28. Next, he figured he should choose his subclass, which he had already decided when he was first creating his 'character'. Scrolling through the list, he selected the Necromancer subclass, watching as the screen changed to inform him of his new abilities.

**Necromancer subclass has been selected!**

**Necromancy Savant and Grim Harvest gained from Necromancer!**

Following that, for the two new spells he got for reaching the next level of Wizard, Damien added the ever trusty Magic Missile and Ray of Sickness, the only first level Necromancy spell that actually did damage. Well, aside from Inflict Wounds, but that was exclusive to Clerics, sadly, which meant that his only option was Ray of Sickness, but at least it would allow him to make the most use out of his new class ability. Thanks to his high Intelligence, he was capable of preparing both of his new spells, giving him a total of eight choices to make use of his spell slots, which hadn't recovered the one he spent during his spar but had raised the number of total slots to three, leaving him at two he was able to use at the moment. Once his selections were finalized, he was returned to his previous position by The Game so nothing would appear off to Lillian, and then time was resumed as color bled into the world once more. A few moments were spent in silence as his master continued to gauge him, until finally she spoke up and voiced her thoughts to him.

"You did rather well, even holding back I didn't expect you to defeat my Simulacrum, much less unharmed. Of course, she didn't have my equipment either, so I suppose you did adequately against an opponent who wasn't martially inclined."

Her nose was turned up as she spoke, her head turned to the side as if she wasn't looking at him, a clear display of sass that he knew meant she was pleased with his success and would expect more of the same from him in the future. Sheathing the sword at his left hip, he gave an exaggerated and flourished bow, brushing away his emotional outburst from before and trying to carry on as normal. It would just be a major hassle to try and explain to her why he freaked out, and if she didn't ask then he definitely didn't want to bring up the subject and deal with that powder keg.

"You make my heart cry with joy at hearing your words of overwhelming kindness. Truly, you are the most generous and supportive of all teachers, master. To my dying breath shall I hold your praise close and strive to earn more."

A snort was what he received in response to his smartass comment, and he chuckled as he straightened up, rolling his shoulders and loosening them up before walking over to her. All things considered, even after his moment of panic and anger, this had been an amazingly productive day already, since it had gotten him to level two and most of the way to level three. Hopefully he would be able to convince Lillian and Krestin that he was ready to head out on his own as an adventurer, so that he could build up his experience faster, instead of being stuck with doing lessons under them that were unlikely to provide proper growth for him. Or, likely worse, have him suddenly grow way faster than he had any right to be, especially after the full year of training that his previous self had done under them with a fairly normal rate of progress, and have them question how that was possible. At least if he was out as an adventurer, he could avoid being questioned on just how strong he was getting and how he was doing it so quickly, while building a name and reputation for himself at the same time.

Following the same steps as yesterday, he went upstairs to her study and looked through a selection of books, lunch being brought to him after a couple hours, and once he was done he retreated to his bedroom to nurture Amitoj through meditation for the next eight hours. This time, he made sure to cover the window so that the golden light wasn't shining outside and drawing any curiosity, and once he could feel that the little godling had received the full attention it required for the day, he tucked them back under the floor with the blankets. With a stretch and a yawn, the dimension hopper got changed and hopped his ass into bed, falling asleep almost immediately after his head hit the pillow, the blankets wrapped around him like a warm, quilted cocoon.

* * *

The next morning held a surprise for our favorite Nephalem, in the form of a simple statement that came from his mentor during breakfast.

"I'm going to be busy today, so you're free to do what you want. Just make sure that it's productive."

Well, that definitely made things easier for him, it would give him the free time he needed to hit level three and possibly test out his racial ability, he figured it would likely be as instinctive as everything else he had done so far, but he wanted to experience having wings and flying, something that he knew would be far different from sitting in a chair in the sky. He wasn't sure how to test his Truesight, since he didn't exactly have a way to do that while out wandering blindly, nor did he have any desire to get hit by a Fireball to test his damage resistance, and he hadn't been able to tell if there was anything special about the way he felt when he had been resisting her Hold Person that she cast on him. That left his innate magic, and that could be an interesting experiment, since it was something that he could do naturally and didn't require the normal components, whether it be words, hand gestures, or material stuff, it was possible that it felt different.

"Of course. I have an idea or two that should keep me busy and help me out."

Today could be spent hunting wildlife, to gather up some experience towards reaching his next level up and gaining his subclass for Fighter, and working on creating his very first Signature Ability, something that would hopefully be fairly simple but still effective. Finishing up their meal, they said goodbye to each other for the day and split off, going their separate ways. Damien made his way outside of the safe city walls of Grandus, something that he had a lot of bad luck with after searching through the memories of his past self, which meant that he would be in for a surprise most likely. If the books he had read were accurate, the terrain around the city was fairly untouched wilderness, letting nature grow and wild animals roam, which gave them resources. Trees for clean air and wood, foliage for berries and vegetables, animals for meat, and the trees weren't so thick that it was difficult to travel which was another bonus.

As he was walking along, sword and shield at the ready, he was searching for some animals like deer, boars, even a small pack of wolves or something would be good, something challenging but not too dangerous, to get him that third level. During his little self-given quest, he was alerted to the presence of someone else as a surprised yell of pain reached his ears, causing him to twist on his heel and look for the source. Almost immediately, he saw a group of five people, four of them seeming to be glaring at the last one, each of them wielding a spear, and the last one had a snake latched on to his leg. As a memory of his past self floated to the surface, he realized that these were a few members of that tribe he selected as one of his detriments, and according to the backstory The Game had given him, he had accidentally killed one of them during a hunting trip Krestin had taken him on about half a year ago. Apparently he had been practicing with a bow and arrow while trying to hunt some deer, when he had heard a rustling in some bushes nearby and fired into them, nailing a tribe member who had been gathering some berries right in the throat.

So with zero hesitation, he stuffed his sword into the sheath on his left hip, not eager to rush into close range when there were so many of them ready to surround him, instead choosing to test out his new spell.

"Eiusmodi hostibus meis!"

The smart thing was to go for the weakest one, which would be the one damaged by the snake, because the snake would probably be killed by the one it was biting, or the snake would kill them before they could. Instead, if he killed them, then the snake could potentially damage another one of them, which would make it easier for him to finish them off. A sickening greenish energy swirled around his hand, almost like a smokey cloud of poisonous gas, before shooting out and hitting the wounded man in the chest. It seeped into him as he stumbled back, his skin turning green as he coughed and heaved, dropping to his knees before slamming face first into the dirt, dead. While this was happening, Damien was backing up to a distance of roughly sixty feet, the maximum distance that his spell could reach, barely acknowledging the '13' that showed briefly in his right peripheral.

Almost as soon as their corpse hit the ground, the snake released them and lunged with a hiss, clamping its teeth down on the thigh of another one, eliciting a small grunt of pain and annoyance before they shook it off. Once the snake was off, they hoisted up their spear and rushed forward to try and meet the tribe killer in close quarters, the snake attempting to tear into their heel but just barely missing. As they charged up to him, getting right in his face, the other three split apart and pulled back their spears, closing in by thirty feet before sending them flying at him. Two of them came from a similar angle, and he was able to raise his shield up to block them, a sharp sound ringing out as metal struck metal. But with his attention already split between the enemy nearly in melee range and the two attacks he was blocking, he wasn't able to avoid or deflect the third one, pain coursing through him and his jaw clenching as the metal cut through his right calf, and he saw his health counter drop by 7 points.

Pushing past the pain, he recalled his Second Wind ability, which would allow him to heal himself, and mentally activated it before seeing a '9' as his health returned to full, feeling as the gash on his leg healed in a matter of seconds. Simultaneously, he unsheathed his blade just as the tribe member reached him, stabbing up through their stomach and seeing an '11' in his vision before they stumbled back, falling backwards. Standing his ground, he kept his eyes on the other three that were steadily closing in on him, readying new spears from the small handful they carried on their backs. Seeing a wince of pain from one of the two on his left, a small smirk crossed his face, amused and pleased to see that the snake was still doing its thing and being a pain in the ankles. His amusement was short lived as a hidden enemy suddenly dropped from the tree branches above him, driving their spear into his shoulder instead of his head as he just managed to step back, taking 4 points of damage according to his health counter, even if it felt worse than that in his opinion.

"Son of a bitch!"

He growled out in a mix of pain and irritation, the other three taking advantage of this moment to rush in and surround him, each taking a stab at him to try and bring him down. Two of them missed, only grazing across his armor and one hitting his shield, but the third one dug about half an inch into his right hip, a '7' showing that they had hurt him a good deal. Getting pretty irritated at these nuisances, which admittedly he had willingly brought upon himself, he summoned his wings for the first time and locked his arms around the bastard who had ambushed him like Tarzan before flying sixty feet straight up, carrying them up there as they yelled and flailed, them and the other three all startled by his wings suddenly manifesting. Regaining their senses, they all thrust their spears at his legs as he was soaring upwards, but he was taking no risks and cast Shield, their blade tips bouncing off the invisible barrier harmlessly. Desperate to kill him before he could finish whatever he was planning on doing to their friend, they tossed their spears up into the air but they just bounced off his barrier and fell back to the ground.

Pushing another sixty feet into the air, he stared into the eyes of the struggling man in his grip the whole way, their spear attempting to pierce him but not getting past his protective spell. Once they were a hundred and twenty feet above the ground, he let go of them and watched as they plummeted like a rock, screaming and trying desperately to catch onto something on the way down. Unfortunately for them and one of their friends, they didn't succeed, crashing right on top of one of their allies, a loud and sickening crack filling the air as their bodies broke, a majority of their bones snapping and being crushed. He could see in the right of his vision that the both of them had suffered 46 points of damage, far more than enough to kill them both. That left only two enemies, and as he spent his last spell slot to cast Magic Missile, three magical darts of force energy formed as he called out "Rursus vero magicae sagittam" and went zooming down and ripped into one of them, an '8' showing that he had almost, but not quite finished them off.

Two thirds of them had died, their enemy seemed to barely be injured, and now he was capable of flying far outside of their reach and pelting them from a distance. They weren't the smartest individuals around but they weren't morons, they weren't going to win this fight and there was no point in throwing themselves at him until they died. So they turned tail and they began running, hoping that they would lose him and make it back to the rest of their tribe. But they wouldn't be so lucky, because Damien couldn't let them get back to their tribe with the information they had learned about his wings, couldn't risk that being spread to others who could figure out his heritage and hunt him down because of it. Speeding down towards the ground at a diagonal angle, he weaved between the branches and lowered below the leaves, catching sight of them and noticing that one of them had the snake clamped down on their calf.

Following directly behind them, Damien cast Chill Touch and saw the skeletal hand grasp the one without the snake around the neck, seeing a measly '1' on his damage counter, as he just decided to refer to it as. Making use of his Action Surge for the first time, he felt adrenaline coursing through him as he quickly cast a second Chill Touch, this one closing around the opposite side of their neck and a '6' showed in his vision, this time watching as they dropped like a ragdoll. Closing in behind the last survivor, he swung at them but they ducked under his sword, managing to kick the snake off their leg and pushing their legs as hard as they could, gritting their teeth in pain. But it was all futile, for Damien may as well have been an Angel of Death, persistently chasing them down and plunging his blade through their back, a '12' displayed as the life left them. As the life left them and their legs gave out, the combination of their weight sinking down and his forward momentum caused the sharp metal to rip up through their shoulder, blood gushing everywhere.

With the battle finally ending, Damien touched down on the ground a few feet in front of the corpse, the adrenaline leaving him and the full weight of what had happened hitting him. Kneeling down and leaning forward, his chest and throat tightened and burned, dry heaving a few times as he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. At first, it had been in self defense, but at the end, it was done out of a combination of anger and fear, but regardless of the reasons he had just killed six people. This may have been some sort of game, but they were intelligent, as far as he was concerned they were real, and he would have to do it again. He knew this, he knew what kind of world Dungeons and Dragons was, but knowing what to expect hadn't made it any easier once it had actually happened.

Surprisingly, he was recovering faster than he expected, it wasn't as difficult as he thought it would be, and after a few moments he realized it was because of the memories of his past self. Before he took over, they had dealt with death before when they accidentally killed that tribe member, and they had killed a bandit when they tried to rob him. It didn't fully remove the hardship he was suffering from, but it did ease it somewhat and take the edge off, something he was grateful for. After a minute or two, he managed to compose himself and pull himself together, rising to his feet and sheathing his sword after wiping the blood off. It seemed that The Game was being considerate of his emotions, because it had waited until he recovered before displaying the message to him, the world turning grey again.

**Encounter Complete!**

**Results**

1v6

Adjusted experience: 375

Gestalt: 188

Progress: 911/2,700

**Level up! **

**Please select subclass for Fighter.**

**Please select new spells for Wizard.**

**Please roll hit die for new max health.**

**Darkness gained from racial trait Magic Incarnate and added to Wizard spell list!**

Rolling his new health first like last time, he was disappointed when he rolled a '2', but was also grateful for the perk that guaranteed he got a minimum of average. Watching his max health increase by 11 to a nice 39, as well as his current health raising from 17 to 28, he quickly chose Eldritch Knight for his Fighter subclass. This did amazing things for his magic, gaining an extra first level slot and two second level slots from Wizard, on top of learning two new spells, and from Fighter he gained two new cantrips, three spells, and two more first level slots.

**Eldritch Knight subclass has been selected!**

**Spellcasting and Weapon Bond gained from Eldritch Knight! **

**Please select new spells for Eldritch Knight.**

Oh boy, he had some choices to make, and he just knew that both Lillian and Krestin would have some questions on how his magic had increased so drastically. At least this would help him focus his mind on something else and move past this fight, so he looked through his list of options, focusing on making the choices for Fighter first. Just taking a moment to consider, he added Fire Bolt and Mage Hand to his cantrips, and Detect Magic, Protection From Evil and Good, and Thunderwave to his first level spells. Mirror Image and Misty Step were added to his list of second level Wizard spells, though he could only have one of them prepared until he took a long rest and could change his prepared spells, so he memorized Misty Step. Level up completed, colors returned and his attention shifted to the wings still prominent behind him, looking back to admire them and raising an eyebrow as he took in their appearance.

"Huh. They're tendrils of energy, like those angels from that game, Diablo 3. That's pretty cool."

He noted, and like the racial description had informed him, the top two tendrils were a brilliant, pure and holy white, the center two tendrils were grey, and the bottom two tendrils were the darkest shade of black he had ever seen. It also occurred to him that he had, entirely on instinct and without even noticing during, flew without any effort or difficulty whatsoever. Willing them to recede and disperse, just in case anyone ended up stumbling across him, he gently placed a hand to his chest and focused on wanting to heal his wounds. Within seconds, a glow of warm light built up in his hand and spread across his body, a mixture of the pure white, grey, and pitch black that his wings were. He saw a '9' tick up on his health counter, bringing him to 37, only two below his new max.

Rolling his shoulders, he moved a good distance away from the scene of his battle against the tribe members, closer to the city walls just in case he got ambushed again and had to flee to safety for back-up. Once he felt he was in a good location, he pulled out his sword and finally began to work on creating his first Signature Ability, something that he felt would suit him and help him out in future fights. Taking in a deep breath, he tried to channel his magic into his sword, focusing it as a coating on the blade that would enhance its damage, and as he tried to guide it he could feel a minor response. Very slowly, it listened to him, building up in his hands before trickling into his weapon, spreading gradually and forming a visible, light blue haze on it. Gripping the hilt firmly, he swung at a tree and watched as the magic dissipated before it could even connect, doing nothing to add power to his attack, causing a tired sigh to escape him.

"This is going to take a long fucking time."

* * *

**AN**: Well, there's chapter two, only three days later! I've introduced two new mechanics, the Enchanting tool proficiency and the Signature Abilities system, both of which I've personally created. They'll add a bit more creativity and uniqueness to the main character, and the story in general, by allowing new and exciting abilities to be developed.

Good lord those rats got lucky rolls, I kept rolling 17 and 18 when they tried to maul his feet. But he got his revenge in his fight against the Simulacrum, when she couldn't roll high enough to hit him. And then that fight against the tribal warriors, that sure was funny. I rolled for an encounter and ended up with them, then I rolled Stealth checks for them all against his Passive Perception, four of them rolled 17 or lower and got spotted anyway, one of them rolled a natural 20 (guess which one), and one rolled a natural 1 (guess who, again). Then I rolled severity, and got pretty high, and so the snake was added into the mix.

Also, thank you so much to everyone who added this to your favorite and/or follow list! It means a lot to me that people are already enjoying this after only one chapter, and I hope you enjoy this one even more. Sorry for the long bit of math there after the spar with the Simulacrum, I just wanted to let you all know how I was calculating it so you didn't think I pulled a random number out of my ass, now that I shared my process I'll just give the final numbers after future spars.

DG2: I know the first chapter was a bit long, but I felt it was necessary in order to explain the system and rules I was using for the story. Personally, I don't like when that stuff isn't introduced, because it feels like "Where the fuck did that shit come from? What's going on?" whenever stuff is mentioned in later chapters that wasn't explained in the first chapter. So I covered the majority of what custom additions and changes I would be making to the core 5e system, got into his original life a little bit, and handled the character creation, so that would all be out of the way for chapter two. At least that way I wouldn't be dragging it into the next chapter and making you guys read through two prologues, y'know? Anyway, hopefully you like this chapter better, since it's getting into the action a bit more and offered some growth.

Well, thanks again to everyone who gave this a read, and I'll do my best to get chapter 3 finished soon!


	3. Chapter 3: Reaching For Potential

**AN**: Here I am, working on chapter three immediately after publishing chapter two! It'll probably take me somewhere around a week to get this one finished, depending on my schedule and how busy I am. But it's Wednesday as I'm writing this, and I usually have a busy Thursday and weekend. Maybe I'll get it out by the weekend, maybe by next Wednesday, we'll see! I'll address that and any potential reviews in the bottom AN.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Reaching For Potential**

Damien spent nearly seven and a half hours on his adventure, about one of those hours being spent simply on walking from and then back to the city, the other six being dedicated to his efforts on developing his Signature Ability, with the half hour or so being split between his little skirmish, searching for food, and eating. Returning home to where Lillian was, as he walked along the roads of Grandus after entering, he took the time to actually look around and admire everything, noting the different architectures present as the different styles of Human, Elf, Dwarf, and others were blended together. There were also different districts, the southern area of the city being the ghetto's for lack of a better term, more cheap and where the poor lived, the quality getting better the further to the northern half of the city, with the town center having a beautiful fountain, a notice board where people could pin up requests, officially funded and personally funded, and a large tree. From what he remembered, that tree was referred to as a Druid Tree, serving the specific purpose of allowing Druids quick and easy access to the city and being large enough to allow for mass transportation, and each of the five territories had one in the center of their capital city. It made Druids very valuable as messengers for important information that had to be delivered immediately, since the Teleportation spell that a Wizard used was generally less reliable, and had more risks involved than the alternative method.

Near the great Druid Tree and fountain, there was a very nice inn called the Rainbow Narwhal, widely considered to be the most popular inn and loved by adventurers, and it was supposedly owned by a Goliath woman and her husband, a Dwarf. Beyond the center and moving further north, the city split into three more districts, the western, eastern, and center sections of the northern half. On the western side was primarily merchant businesses, such as jewelry stores, clothing stores, restaurants, those sorts of things, while the eastern side was mostly residential with a large amount of homes, the Xanathar's Emporium, and the hall for the Platinum Dragon Guild. The center section of the northern side was where the King and Queen lived, alongside some other homes for those of noble positions or simply close and valued friends of any nobility. The palace that the King and Queen lived in wasn't obnoxiously massive, but it was impressive, and within it was the royal vault and treasury, one dedicated to treasures and magical items, the other holding their finances, and they also held rather fancy stables and a nice garden on their property.

His master, Lillian, lived in a home near the center of Grandus, slightly further to the north-east section thanks to her magical skill allowing her to sell her services for a rather nice fee. Everyone had some sort of use for a powerful Wizard, there was very little that an experienced one wasn't capable of doing, and even if they couldn't do something outright they were normally skilled enough to work around it and achieve a similar effect with a combination of other things. Feeling rather refreshed by the time he had returned to the building, he was surprised to see that his master was still out, but took that as an opportunity to think over his wording for when he spoke to her and Krestin about wanting to head out on his own adventure, he needed to be convincing after all. Heading into his room, he closed the window and covered it before pulling out the brilliant gem that held Amitoj, lightly tossing it up to orbit around his head as he began meditating, letting his mind focus only on positive emotions and topics, hoping that it would benefit in the nurturing and shaping of the little deity. Eight hours later, when he had finished and tucked them away once more, he quickly gathered up a small dinner and cleaned up in the bathroom, then spent an hour performing the ritual he gained from Eldritch Knight to bond to his longsword, thanks to his spare half hour he only went to bed thirty minutes later than he would've liked, and then he finally climbed into his bed and drifted off, dreaming of what his future may hold.

* * *

Waking up, Damien went through his morning routine and tucked Amitoj into his backpack gently, wrapping them in the blanket to keep them cushioned and hidden from view if anyone peeked inside. Enjoying a quick breakfast of blueberry pancakes with a banana on the side and a glass of milk, he bid farewell as he left Lillian and went slightly to the southwest of the town center, where his mentor Krestin lived. After putting a bit of thought into it, he decided that it would probably be best if he finished this week of training before trying to head off on his adventure, it was the respectful thing to do after all, and if nothing else he should show them respect. Stopping outside the door of his second teachers home, he gave three firm knocks and then waited, giving them time to finish whatever they were doing before they checked the door and let him inside. After about a minute or two, the door opened and he saw the old Half-Elf, who actually still looked fairly young except for their short silver-white hair, the most visible sign of their lifespan nearing its end.

They were about four inches shorter than him, standing at a height of 5'10 placing the top of their head to about the top of his nose, and they wore an interesting combination of armor and clothing, with a plate chausses and plate cuisses, a plate fauld on his right hip, plate vambraces, a plate pauldron on his left shoulder, with their clothing being a mix of a light green and earthy brown. He could see their pants were at least primarily brown, as it overlapped with the armor above their knees, apparently pulled over some of the pieces and left underneath others, with the left side having brown going up it, and the majority of the right side and chest being light green, until brown spread out near the neck up to the beginning of the right shoulder, the left arm being entirely brown and the right arm changing to brown at the elbow down. Around his waist was a belt with a silver buckle set with crossed lightning bolts, which if his memory wasn't failing him, he assumed was a Belt of Storm Giant Strength, and on his left hip was a sheathed sword with a blade that curved upward ever so slightly and had notches on the top half, near the blade tip. At the moment he didn't have it, but normally whenever he went anywhere or when they were having a training session, he had a rather high quality shield resting on his back, which was likely in the Bag of Holding currently hanging from his right hip if he had to take a guess, along with the rest of his important gear. Around his neck were two different necklaces, one with a collection of nine red beads, and the other necklace had two items hanging from it, one a set of slightly parted hands holding a three-segmented red gem, the other a green circle gem set in a silver circle frame, and smaller versions of the gem set around the silver frame.

"Well well, there's my favorite apprentice. Talula told me you've had a change lately, getting around earlier and performing better than usual, like beating her snow clone handily. I hope to see that same sort of fire in my lessons with you, son."

Damien couldn't help but roll his eyes in response, despite the pleased smile that was fixed on his face when he heard those words of praise.

"I'm your only apprentice, sir, but thank you for the kind words. I'll do my best to exceed your expectations of me."

A solid nod was his response, before the much older man gestured back into his home with his head. As he observed the retired soldier, Damien couldn't help but wonder what their stats looked like, making an educated guess that they at least had a max score in Constitution judging by how healthy and young they looked despite how old they were, though he couldn't make an accurate guess on his natural Strength score if that was the belt he thought it was. If that _wasn't _a Belt of Storm Giant Strength though, and it was only some sort of mind game to throw off his opponents by making them think he was a walking force of nature, then he would place him at a solid max score in Strength as well, with that broad and muscular frame.

"Since you did admirably in your spar against Talula, I decided that today we would have a proper spar. I'll hold back, of course, I'm still nearly two centuries your senior after all, but not as much as I usually do. You need experience in combat against an opponent who is your superior in skill. You'll be free to use your magic, if you wish, under the same reasoning Talula gave for using your weapon and shield against her. Test you as a whole and not a half, and all that."

When it came to vocabulary and fluency of words, Talula definitely outpaced dear old Krestin, but the old soldier wasn't stupid by any means, he was just far more blunt and direct, saying what he wanted to say in the most simple way possible, something that Damien could respect after his years of dealing with greedy little silver tongued businessmen that tried to cheat him or manipulate him. These thoughts all crossed his mind as he followed the man through his home and, after taking a moment to drop off his backpack in his room, into his backyard, which had been converted into a small arena of sorts, fenced in and with a circle drawn on the ground in the center. The backyard was maybe thirty feet from wall to wall, in a square shape, and the arena was five feet away from the fence walls and the house, making it twenty feet in diameter and taking up the majority of the backyard. Each of them took a moment to prepare, adjusting their equipment and loosening up their limbs before stepping into the center of the circle, standing only five feet apart. Krestin had taken his shield out of the Bag of Holding, proving his assumption to be correct, and they both stood apart from each other with sword and shield at the ready, watching the other and waiting for some unseen sign for the spar to begin.

Damien saw a twitch of movement from his teacher and launched forward, going for an overhead slash that ended up slamming harmlessly against their shield, being redirected away from their body, about what he expected from his memories of the man. Gritting his teeth, he mentally triggered his Action Surge and willed forth his innate Darkness spell that he had gained the previous day, focusing it directly in the center of the arena so that it would encompass everything. May as well abuse his Truesight for the fight, since he would be able to see through the spell and attack just fine, whereas his teacher would be completely blinded and struggle at least a little bit to land their blows against him. Hoping that his tactic would work, he held his shield up in front of him in preparation for the upcoming attacks, seeing that Krestin had already begun swinging his blade the moment his sword had connected with their shield. The first blow came crashing down on his shield and shook his entire arm, he could feel his bones creaking as he mentally confirmed to himself that this man was indeed wearing a Belt of Storm Giant Strength, because he was stronger than Damien despite his beyond human Strength.

He could even tell that the man was holding back, like he had said, but as he saw his health counter tick down by '13' points, his only thought was 'Fuck that' as he cast his Shield spell, just in time as well, as the next two swings were deflected, and the fourth and final swing thankfully went wide and missed. That told him that this man was indeed a level 20, which didn't reassure him whatsoever, but he was grateful that he managed to push through the pain in his arm and maintain his focus on Darkness, which he knew would undoubtedly be his saving grace in this spar. As his protective spell faded, he began trying to circle around behind Krestin and catch him off guard, but as he tried to back away it seemed that the man could hear him and lashed out with a vicious swipe, which he immediately cast another Shield in response to. His eyes were wide in a brief moment of panic, the sharp edge closing in straight towards his throat, and the sword split straight through the barrier of invisible force, but it did its job just well enough to redirect the blow as it got slowed down, instead catching him across his right shoulder, another '13' ticking off of his health counter, but he had already steeled himself for the pain and didn't waver in his concentration, keeping Darkness up even as he was reduced to one third of his health in two attacks. Mentally spending his bonus action to trigger Second Wind, he was slightly comforted by the '6' points of health he regained, which had bought him one more blow that he could muscle through.

Continuing with his course of action, he finished backing away and moved behind his fucking nightmare of a teacher, keeping track in his head of how far he moved, a habit from all the D&D he had played, counting a total of fifteen feet to back away and move behind his target. Taking a single thrust, he was disappointed when his weapon hit a piece of the covered armor and bounced off without any damage, watching as Krestin did a quick pivot on his heel and moving another fifteen feet to return to the previous side of the arena. As he was moving away, he watched as they took a single slash at his previous position, before closing their eyes and seeming to listen for him, hearing his footsteps and breathing it would seem, considering they came straight for him. The protective spell was still surrounding him, but like before, the blade seemed to stab right through and pierce him in the left hip, dropping him to a measly '6' hit points, but he grit his teeth and kept up Darkness still, knowing that without it he would have been struck down by now. The second attack came straight for him just a moment later, but this one had thankfully missed as he staggered back just far enough to be out of the range, and as Krestin continued forward in his pursuit, he deflected the last attack as he reinforced his spell with his own shield, swinging his left arm up to meet the blade and throwing his full weight into it, which worked like a charm as he caught the man off guard, causing him to lose his footing and balance, before tripping over his own feet and crashing to the ground.

His protective spell faded away after the last blow, but he barely acknowledged it as he took this opportunity with damn near desperation, determined to land at least a single solid attack on his mentor before he was defeated, knowing full well that he wouldn't be winning this spar no matter how hard he tried. Frustration gripped him as he brought his longsword down with his full might, only to be blocked by Krestin as he raised his shield up to catch the strike with seemingly minimal effort, a wild grin on his face and a steely shine in his eyes. "Educ me de firma adhaesio rebus inter nebulas." He whispered the words for Misty Step, a silvery mist engulfed him and he vanished, reappearing in a brief silvery mist on the opposite side of the arena, standing completely still and controlling his breathing in an attempt to avoid giving away his new position. As the man rose to his feet, he began rushing around erratically and taking wild swings, trying to find his target but thankfully he didn't get close to Damien, who took this last attempt to close in on him from behind and then escape with Misty Step, only able to use it twice until he got more second level spell slots. Rushing the man from behind, he swung around to face Damien, shield lifted to intercept the strike once more with a loud clang, and a mix of anger and respect was bubbling up in his chest, his frustration with himself for repeatedly failing to land a blow despite having the advantage gradually growing.

As the silvery mist swallowed him once more, he appeared as far away from the Half-Elf as possible, their first attack stabbing straight through the spot he was previously standing in before the spell carried him away to safety, and once he realized what had happened he repeated his process of rushing across the arena and stabbing blindly. This was it, his last attempt to hit Krestin at least once, and after this he was likely going down unless his Shield spell succeeded in protecting him from all the incoming attacks. Leaping forward, he made a diagonal slash from the bottom left to the top right of Krestin's exposed back, and as he saw a '12' appear in the peripheral of his right vision, he felt incredibly satisfied and happy to have at least succeeded in doing damage without resorting to spells. As expected, they spun around the moment the attack landed, a look of satisfaction and pride on the old soldiers face, which made Damien feel good about the achievement, no matter how small it may have actually been. With no hesitation or mercy, however, the attacks came, and a Shield was cast to give him at least some small hope of surviving for another attempt at damaging the walking tank before him.

But it simply wasn't meant to be, as the very first thrust pierced through his magical barrier and stabbed into his left shoulder, another '13' points dropping him straight from his '6' to nothing, his vision immediately dimming as his last bit of energy was leaving him, his sword and shield dropping from his hands and his concentration failing, Darkness fading immediately and revealing his condition to his teacher. They were in midswing for their next attack, but immediately stopped and sheathed their sword, stuffing the shield into the pocket dimension of a bag they wore on their waist, and that was the last thing he saw before he met the ground and lost consciousness. But despite the pain, he was happy, knowing that landing even a single blow against someone as powerful as Krestin was a feat that most couldn't boast, especially not when they were as low level and weak as he currently was.

* * *

When he awoke, he could taste strawberries in his mouth, and he saw that his health counter had moved up to '5', letting him know that he had been fed a health potion to bring him back up from that total ass whooping he had just received. He was laying in his bed though, so he guessed that he had been carried in there to rest before being given the potion, and it must have taken a moment since Krestin wasn't visible in the room. After regaining his bearings, he relaxed and looked up at the ceiling, the pillow below his head as a screen suddenly appeared above him, as expected, letting him know how the spar had gone and what he gained from it.

**Encounter Complete!**

Results

1v1

Adjusted experience: 281.25

Gestalt: 141

Progress: 1,052/2,700

That was another reason he needed to go on this adventure, sure he would get a lot of experience if he could actually do anything in his spars against Krestin and Lillian without them holding back at all, but that simply wasn't realistic as shown by his swift and virtually effortless defeat at the hands of Krestin. He had gotten less experience than when he defeated the Simulacrum, which he was sure was partially due to being a slightly higher level than during that spar, but majorly thanks to only doing, at a rough guess, somewhere between a tiny bit less than five and a half percent at most, and roughly three and a half percent at minimum, of his max health, depending on what it was. He would be getting better experience if he was out in the world, fighting against enemies that were closer to him in strength that he was capable of fully defeating, especially if it was a group of enemies as opposed to a single enemy. His body was still pretty banged up, and he wanted to go to sleep immediately, but he knew that he had to stick to his schedule and would probably be visited by Krestin soon to discuss how their spar went, which also meant he couldn't safely begin meditating with Amitoj yet. Sighing and shifting to get comfortable, he instead began practicing his new ability, summoning his sword to his hand and tossing it away, then summoning it back into his hand, repeating this process to instill the sensation and process in himself and help ingrain it as second nature.

He managed to do this a little more than one hundred and thirty times over the course of the next thirteen minutes or so, at which point Krestin walked in and saw his practice, raising an eyebrow in a mix of surprise and curiosity.

"Ah, so you've chosen to follow _that_ path. I guess that makes sense, it would probably come the most naturally to you. I'm surprised you've managed to come that far in just half a week, though."

Stopping his cycle when the man had made his presence known, Damien dropped the sword on the top of his backpack, turning his head slightly to look over at them and give a nod of confirmation, not wanting to expend the effort required to sit up at the moment.

"That's true, it is easier for me to follow a path of magic and combine that with my martial skill. I do want to talk with you about something, though."

"Oh really? Alright, let's hear it."

With a curious gleam visible in their eyes, Krestin stepped a bit further into the room and pulled a chair near the bed, taking a seat and fixing their full attention on Damien, waiting for him to speak whatever was on his mind. Even after taking the time to put a lot of thought into what he wanted to say, and how he wanted to say it, there was a small bit of nervousness lingering as he considered the possibility of them reacting negatively to his words. But he buried that and let confidence fill him and his words, determined to convince Krestin because if he had faith in the young hybrid, then that would make it much easier to convince Lillian to agree.

"I appreciate everything you and Lillian have done for me the past year, taking me in and teaching me when I had nothing, when I _was_ nothing, just some orphan who spent all of his time reading since he had nothing else. And I don't want to come across as ungrateful or disrespectful, but I wanted your blessing to go out and travel, to go on my own adventure. Things here are safe, a controlled environment, and while that served me well for the beginning of my training, I feel like the best way for me to grow to my full potential is to experience the world as it is, wild and raw, unpredictable and forcing me to adapt and evolve to situations that I can't expect. You're likely one of the strongest warriors alive, and you gained that skill and experience by surviving the brutal and bloody things the world threw at you, not staying behind the safety of the city walls. I intend to at least finish this week of training with you before going out on my own, if you give me your blessing, alongside Lillian, I just feel like it's the best path for me to walk."

Silence fell upon the pair for a few minutes, which felt like hours for Damien as worry that his request would be denied, or worse, that he had offended the experienced soldier and completely ruined one of his only two relationships in this world, if not both of them in one fell swoop. But that worry was soon relieved and wiped away when he heard chuckling, watching as Krestin laughed and shook their head, leaning back in the chair they sat in before quieting down. A smile still on their face, an odd mixture of warm, amused, and sad, they finally responded to his declaration.

"I wondered when you were going to ask, but I knew it was coming eventually. Almost every young man dreams of becoming an adventurer, enticed by the possibilities of fame and riches, though I'm happy to see that's not the case with you. Reaching your full potential is an admirable goal, so many people are content to sit at their half best and believe it's as far as they can go. It's the safest choice, true, death is the common end for those who seek more for themselves, whether because others wish to see them fail and sabotage them, or because they grab further than they can reach. But you, you're something different from the rest of us, you're special and unique, and I believe truly that you can become something amazing if you're just given the chance to flourish."

Touched by the words of praise and faith, Damien felt his eyes grow moist, but he kept himself composed and remained silent, listening to his mentor and taking their words to heart.

"While I'm hesitant about sending you out so young, and risking your light being snuffed out before it can be properly kindled, I trust your ability to judge your own skill. You have my blessing. I'm guessing you haven't talked to Lillian yet?"

At his nod of confirmation, a sigh and a chuckle escaped the Half-Elf.

"I'll talk to her tonight, while you're resting. I'm not going easy on our next two days of training, so don't expect anything less!"

Standing up from the chair, the man ruffled his student's hair and returned the chair where it belonged, walking out of the room to go meet with Lillian, presumably. Left alone, he couldn't hold back the broad smile anymore, feeling nearly overwhelmed with joy after how well that brief conversation went. Making himself sit up, Damien eased Amitoj out of the backpack and looked at the window on the other side of the room, not wanting to get up from the bed he instead made use of one of his new cantrips from his Eldritch Knight subclass.

"Movent mundum per voluntatem meam."

As the spectral, floating hand appeared, he used it to pull the curtains shut and block the window, making sure that nobody would be disturbed by the brilliant light of Amitoj while he meditated and nurtured the child. Tossing them up gently, closing his eyes as he did so, he cleared his mind the best he could and spent the next eight hours like that, gently tucking them into his backpack again once he was finished. Still feeling quite a lot like hammered shit, he gently placed a hand on his chest and triggered his innate Cure Wounds ability, pleased to see by his health counter that he healed for max, '13' adding to what he already had. Now just a little below half, he dragged himself out of bed and made his way to the kitchen for something to eat before he finally went to sleep, digging through the cupboards and settling on some fresh fruit and a simple sandwich with meat and cheese. Once he was content with a full stomach, he returned to bed and wrapped himself up underneath the blankets, with pleasant thoughts of the upcoming few days that would hopefully lead into him creating his legend.

* * *

**Three Days Later**

The next two days went by rather quickly, though they indeed had not been easy, as Krestin had informed him that first day after their conversation. He had gained a total of 330 experience from the two days, placing him at a solid 1,382 and just slightly over the halfway point to his next level, which he was looking forward to since he would get his first feat, and he had also made more progress towards developing his first Signature Ability. Lillian had also been persuaded by her old friend, Krestin, giving him both of their blessings to go on his adventure today, receiving a hundred and ten gold pieces from Krestin for starting funds, a set of Clothes of Mending from Lillian, and a Bag of Holding as a joint gift, a must have for any decent adventurer according to them, which he agreed with, quite frankly. Of course, he had followed his routine of meditating with the Soul Star, his little fledgling Amitoj, for eight hours after his training and before retiring to bed for the night, ensuring that he didn't miss a single day so that he wouldn't have to restart the entire process or risk suffering from the Bane. The last thing that either he or the world in general needed, after all, was a psychotic and evil God wreaking havoc on everything because he neglected his responsibilities.

Wearing his new clothes, which had the same style as his usual set just with the Mending enchantment placed on them, he set out with his gear all situated, the backpack and other equipment placed in the Bag of Holding on his right hip, the sword on his left hip and the shield fixed on his left arm. Of course he also had his studded leather armor on top of the clothing, with the arcane focus bracelet on his left wrist, prepared to fight at a moments notice if some bandit or creature decided to ambush him. The first day passed by without much event, not a major surprise since he was still close to the capital and following the main road, and at the end of his walking he set up a camp on the roadside to meditate with Amitoj and get some rest in his tent after doing some training towards his Signature Ability. During his second day of travel, however, things proved to be somewhat more eventful for him, which was exactly what he had been hoping for during his adventures after all. They had done rather well trying to catch him off guard and hide, but he had been expecting conflict at some point and been on guard, so he managed to detect them hiding underneath some bushes off to the side, with one sitting on a tree branch overhead and trying to cover themselves with the leaves.

"Rursus vero magicae sagittam."

Lifting his left hand up, the three magical darts flew up into the tree, piercing the surprised bandit through their left hip, right lung, and their throat, his damage counter in his right peripheral letting him know that he dealt '11' points of damage, which from his memory was the exact amount of health an average bandit had. While his attack struck and their corpse fell from the branch, he was unsheathing his longsword and gripping it in his right hand, turning to face the other three threats that gave up their attempt at stealth once they realized he had already detected them. Making full use of his current best combo, he mentally triggered his Action Surge before they could begin their assault and cast Darkness right between himself and his enemies, making the fight be as in his favor as possible since he was outnumbered, and even if he could potentially take them down in a single shot, that meant nothing if he was cocky and slipped up. One of them was noticeably tougher and better equipped than the others, two of them having a scimitar and a crossbow with some leather armor, while the third had studded leather and was dual wielding a scimitar and a dagger. That was a captain if he was guessing correctly, which meant they had more health than him and definitely justified his use of Darkness, and they were also the first to rush forward and try to blindly swing at him.

Their first stab with their scimitar found nothing but air, though their second swing had slightly better luck, even if it only managed to slam into his shield and do no actual damage, while their dagger thrust went wide and passed harmlessly by his side. Hearing the sounds of combat, the two other bandits charged forward and tried to assist, swinging their curved blades wildly and ending up doing nothing but looking like idiots, even if he was the only one who could see it. It would be better to deal with those two, first, they would go down much more quickly and easily than their leader after all, and the less enemies he had to worry about at a single time, the better. Hearing his footsteps as he moved away to deal with one of the other two, the captain attempted to plunge their dagger into his ribs but was too slow, failing to find his target. Unimpeded, and unimpressed, the sharp edge of his longsword ripped through the left hip of the bandit, a '9' in his vision letting him know that he had done minimal damage, even if the wound looked pretty devastating.

As a cry of pain escaped them, their hand flying to the nasty cut that was gushing blood, it alerted the others and gave them a rough location for where their target was currently at.

"You fucking coward, stop hiding and accept your death! You're finally going to pay for messing with us!"

That confirmed his suspicion that this had something to do with his Bandit Bane detriment, and drew forth a memory as well to explain the reason the bandit group hated him. Apparently, his previous self had been out of the city before his apprenticeship under Krestin and Lillian, trying to make some money by doing a basic request for someone from the notice board, gathering up some special herbs in the forest for them. The younger brother of a Bandit Lord, or so they were apparently calling themself, had ambushed him while he was trying to locate the herbs in the hopes of bringing him in as a slave and breaking him, brainwashing him into being a new recruit. Unfortunately for them, they weren't very skilled and underestimated him, definitely not expecting his beyond human Strength and otherwise peak condition skills, and they got beat down and brought into custody. Apparently that information had somehow spread, by his guess it would likely either be some other bandit scouts who were watching from a distance or the older brother used some sort of magic like Sending to contact their sibling and figured out what had happened.

As they came rushing at him, sword drawn back and ready to stab into him, he sidestepped and watched as their blade instead stabbed straight through the chest of the bandit he just wounded, a smug smirk visible on the face of the captain. But as they realized the magical darkness was steadfast, that smirk wavered and fell away as they realized what they had unintentionally done, warm blood coating their hand as it poured from their friends chest and mouth, choking on their own blood in the brief few seconds before they died. Soon, their expression twisted into that of ugly rage, pulling their weapon back and gripping it until their knuckles turned white.

"You son of a bitch! Just you wait, when I get my hands on you I'm going to skullfuck you and carve all of our names into your flesh!"

Though he wasn't especially intimidated by the graphic threat, a shudder of disgust ran down his spine at the mental image it conjured forth, that particular practice always grossing him out when he was reminded that some people did that. Slipping past them he focused in on the last normal bandit, piercing them through the stomach for a nice '15' points of damage, which definitely was enough to bring them down for the count. As the warm blood soaked his hand and he saw the light leaving their eyes, he felt his stomach clench and his throat burn as bile began to rise, but he just barely managed to keep it down and avoid puking. The last two he had managed to keep his composure, the first one he took down with Magic Missile and could manage to feel at least slightly detached, the second one was killed by the other bandit, but this one was up close and personal, right in his face with their blood literally on his hands. Quickly turning away so he didn't have to keep staring at their corpse, he focused himself on simply finishing and surviving the fight, now just between him and the captain who was seething with rage.

During his moment of distraction, his final opponent had closed in from behind, following the sounds of brief conflict and death between Damien and his victim. Three blows quickly came towards him, but each one was caught and deflected by his shield, leaving him unharmed, while he quickly responded by leaving a gash across their left bicep for '14' points of damage. A hiss of pain followed by a growl of anger was his response, followed by three more furious attacks, two of them actually managing to slip past his defense and wound him, the scimitar slicing his left thigh for '9' points of damage and the dagger nicking his right cheek for an additional '4' points. Not particularly enjoying the fact that a third of his health had just been lost in a single exchange of blows, though thankfully maintaining his concentration on Darkness, he held out his left hand and quickly cast Ray of Sickness, which slammed right into their chest for '11' points of damage. As he did that, he triggered his Second Wind ability and watched his health counter tick up by '7' points, returning a little more than half of what he had just lost.

As the green energy covered them and spread, it seemed to throw them off as they brought their sword down at just the wrong angle, their blade catching on the edge of Damien's shield as he deflected the blow, twisting their wrist painfully, if the '9' points that were showing on his damage counter were anything to go by. Hoping to capitalize on this, Damien lunged forward to try and deepen his cut that he previously made in their arm, but his blade passed over them as they instead dropped below his attack and caught him across the stomach, only a light wound, as he could tell from his health counter dropping by '5'. It didn't faze him or disrupt his focus, and he pulled back quickly to avoid the next two attacks that came his way, succeeding this time in tearing a nasty, deep gash through their left bicep for his max of '16' damage, though they stubbornly kept hold of their dagger even as the thick layer of blood came rushing out and down their arm. At this rate, Damien was practically guaranteed victory, and he was beginning to grow tired, so in the hopes that he could save himself some energy and avoid any further injury, he went for a gamble. Willing forth his wings, he intentionally dropped his Darkness, revealing himself to his opponent in all his glory.

"Just give up already, you damn fool! Your ambush failed, you've lost all of your men, and you're going to die here alongside them! You can't beat me, and you know it, so at least make your death painless and end your suffering!"

Though he couldn't see himself, he made a very imposing image at the moment, looking like some sort of divine Harbinger of Death with his multicolored wings leisurely flowing behind him, virtually perfect and flawless despite his light wounds. Judging by the pure and total fear that was currently dominating their expression, eyes wide and entire body shaking as their skin paled even further than it already had, alongside the sudden smell of urine, he had to guess that he had more than succeeded in his attempt to frighten them. As all the fight left them, they dropped to their knees and let go of their weapons, offering no further resistance as they tilted their head forward, baring their neck as tears poured from their eyes and onto the ground. Walking up to them, he steeled his nerves and executed them, severing their head from their shoulders in one swift swing of his blade, managing to keep his composure and not get sick again. It made him sort of uncomfortable even if he knew it was necessary and was grateful for it, but it was gradually becoming easier to do and wasn't bothering him quite as much as the previous times.

**Encounter Complete!**

1v4

Adjusted experience: 1,312

Gestalt: 656

Creative solution: +300

Progress: 2,338/2,700

"I get bonuses for finding creative solutions? I guess that makes sense, it's encouraged to reward players with extra experience for finding creative solutions to an obstacle, whether it's in combat or otherwise."

Letting this new information take his mind off of things, he willed away his wings and wiped his sword clean, before sheathing it at his left hip and pressing a hand to his chest to cast Cure Wounds, regaining '12' points of health which brought him back to full. Looking at the four corpses, he debated with himself for a few moments before finally deciding to search their bodies for anything useful, finding a Potion of Healing on one of them, a piece of obsidian on another, and enough silver pieces to equal two gold pieces between them all. Once that was done, he was quick to leave the area and continue on his traveling, wanting to get a good distance away before settling down to meditate with Amitoj and eat something.

* * *

A few hours later, at roughly four in the afternoon, is when he came across an interesting sight. Just as he was deciding that he should set down his own camp and get settled in for the rest of the day, he saw another camp ahead, a campfire crackling and letting him know it was fairly recent. Approaching with a mix of caution and curiosity, he could hear an incredibly beautiful melody as a harp was being played, and once he got close enough he could see through the trees who it was. Now, what made it interesting was that they looked like a normal human man in his 40's, standing at 5'11 and from a rough estimate he'd say around 200lbs due to their height and build, with lightly tanned skin and a 5 o'clock shadow, short black hair that was lightly graying. To any normal person, that was all they would see, but thanks to what he was he could see an overlapping image, which was fucking weird by the way, which was roughly the same height but had nearly pure white skin, slightly longer silver hair, colorless eyes that had thick black rings around them, a slender body that was almost frail in appearance, and a lack of any distinct features or facial and body hair.

This was definitely a Changeling, and by the looks of it they were likely a Bard, a very good one when it came to music at the very least, and from what he could recall of their race they were usually very social and peaceful creatures, eager to learn about other cultures and preferring to stay out of any political business or social affairs. As he came within about thirty feet, they noticed his presence and stopped playing on the harp, paying attention and watching as he came closer, taking note of what he was wearing and equipped with. Apparently they seemed to find something they were content with, deciding that he wasn't a threat and allowing Damien to join them at their small campsite, taking a seat on the opposite side of their fire.

"How're you doing, bud? I didn't think I'd see anyone else out here, but you seem like an alright guy. Should help keep the bandits away if there's two of us, anyway, just don't be gay."

That threw him for a loop, and Damien had to visibly shake his head and blink, fixing the man with a look that said 'Did you really just say that', but he had heard correctly and there was a grin on their face as they waited for his response.

"Don't worry, you're not my type. Though I guess you can be whatever type you want, can't you?"

It took a moment for his words to sink in, but once they did the Bard had the most amusing conflict of emotion on their face, confusion, fear, suspicion, he couldn't imagine all the thoughts that must have been running through their mind, but they tried to play it off as if they didn't understand his hidden meaning.

"I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but-"

Damien cut them off with a raise of his hand and a shake of his head, a playful grin forming on his face.

"Nothing gets past my eyes, Mr. Changeling, but don't worry, I hold no ill will towards your people. I just wasn't expecting to run into one like this. Honestly, I'm more interested in knowing why you're out here, traveling on your own."

He could tell that they hadn't fully relaxed, but they weren't quite as on edge anymore so that was progress, at least, instead simply fixing him with a wary look and shifting slightly, as if waiting for some sort of surprise attack to come from nowhere.

"How about you first? Maybe I'll share after."

Giving a shrug, Damien leaned back a bit and got comfortable, his hands angled behind his body and supporting him.

"Well, I've been under an apprenticeship for the past year, and I just feel like I've learned all I can in the confines of the city walls. Staying would hinder my growth, with the safety and lack of real world experience. So I got permission to travel out on my own and try to reach my full potential, going wherever I feel drawn to and being pushed to my limit."

There was a brief moment of silence, as if the Changeling was trying to pick apart his explanation and his body language, determining whether or not it was true and they could trust it, trust him, but they eventually accepted his answer as truth and offered their own reasons.

"I drift around from place to place, playing music and building things for people, doing whatever I can to make money and get by. I like to watch people and learn about them, too, and people are a lot different depending on where they're from. Take a guy from Nemoro and a guy from Kreshvin, they're both gettin' by and tryin' to survive, and this and that, but the places are completely different. The guy from Nemoro grew up around shady shit and so he's going to probably be pretty shady himself, real suspicious of other people and cautious and all that, but the guy from Kreshvin grew up in a pretty solid community and things are upright and straightforward, so he's not going to get where the other guy is coming from. One of them's learned that people are shitbags and liars, and the other one was raised with everyone being honest and this and that, you know what I mean?"

The way they spoke was really surprising to Damien, it was a lot like some of the people from his old world, and despite already coming to terms with the fact that nobody spoke in the medieval way he had been expecting, this was just way too close to his old life for him to have been expecting it. But aside from that, he followed what they were saying for the most part, and he could understand their reason for wanting to travel around to different places, but it didn't quite answer why they were going alone instead of with some sort of group. They had accepted him with the reasoning of safety in numbers, after all, so why weren't they doing that already instead of risking it alone?

"Why do you travel alone, though? I'm sure that you've met a lot of people and made a lot of friends, you've got to have someone you could travel with for safety."

"Well, yeah, I talk to a lot of people and everything, but they're just acquaintances, not people I can really trust and make strong connections with. I'm sure you can guess why."

That was fair, people didn't really trust Changelings because they could become anyone they wanted, making them perfect spies and assassins, even though the majority of them were passive and harmless, and the stereotype and stigma carried a heavy amount of distrust among the other races. Since he had his knowledge from the real world, however much of it still applied at the very least, that meant nothing to him because he knew that they were just like any human, capable of swinging towards evil or good, lawful or chaotic, with no inclination towards one over the other. They liked to express themselves through their ability to change their appearance, and he couldn't find any reason to fault them for doing something that was harmless, it would be like if Dragonborn were treated as if they were a proper Dragon based on their scale color, it was just stupid.

"I understand what you mean, but I know that most people are idiots, as well. They're too quick to fear what's different, what they don't fully understand, and assume the worst of others and believe stereotypes without confirming any facts. I, on the other hand, know quite a lot about your people and won't be swayed by such silly stories and tall tales."

His words seemed to touch a cord within them, as their expression softened and they fully relaxed, almost as if they were desperate to believe his words and have someone who accepted them, the *real* them and not just the persona they adopted as a regular human in order to fit in and not be discriminated against. It pulled a little at his heart, to see such a display of vulnerability from something over something that was so simple in his mind, but was clearly much bigger and more important to them. Wanting to move forward and try to solidify the newly forming bond between them, Damien tilted his head slightly to the side and gave a warm smile, genuine and friendly.

"My name's Damien, by the way, Damien Dominus."

"William Couch. Folks tend to call me Billy, though."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Billy. Hopefully I can be your first friend."

* * *

Shortly after that, they each ate something and Damien set up his tent, retiring for the day as he began to meditate with Amitoj, then eating a basic meal of rations for dinner before finally settling into bed and getting a nice rest, fully recovering from his encounter with the bandits. Once he got up, he quickly dismantled his tent and stuck it back into his little pocket dimension known as the Bag of Holding, not for the first time marveling over how immensely useful it was for being an uncommon item. Once both him and Billy had finished packing up and eating a small breakfast, both of them working together and catching a couple of rabbits to make a nice stew out of, with a little bit left over for each of them to have for dinner later in the day.

"Would you like to travel together, Billy? I'm not quite sure where I'm heading at the moment, but I figure I'll find out once my feet take me there."

Pausing a moment, the Bard thought over the request before eventually nodding, accepting the offer and giving a smile.

"Yeah, alright, just don't fuck me around."

With a grin on their face and the young Nephalem shaking his head, a small smile of his own visible, they set off together and continued walking in the same direction that he had been going before, no clear destination in mind. The next two days passed by in relative peace, simply walking for eight hours a day and then setting up camp to rest, though Billy was curious why Damien insisted on following this schedule each day. On the third day, some truly bullshit luck fell upon them, as they were venturing into the woods to catch some food as they had the previous days when they were set upon by not one, not two, not even three or four, but five fucking Manticores. The only good thing was that one of them had gotten a bit too eager for a meal and ended up smacking their tail into a tree while they were attempting to sneak up on the pair, alerting them to their presence. Two of them were approaching from behind on the ground, while the other three were waiting above, ready to pelt them with their tail spikes.

"Naturae praebes auxilium, et paliurus defensus obice!"

Billy called out as he brandished his harp, plucking the strings rapidly to create a beautiful melody that invoked images of nature, the grass elongating and fusing together as it formed a twenty foot diameter circle of twenty foot tall and five foot thick thorny vines, catching the two Manticore charging toward them on the ground. The creatures were terrifying to look at, being at about 6 feet up to the shoulder and around 10 feet long, with the body of a lion and draconic wings, and an almost humanoid face that was very unsettling. As the tough, thick wall finished forming he lost sight of the two beasts, but they pushed through the wall despite the pain, roars and yowls escaping the pair all the while, clearly displaying their anger at the two prey. Closing in, one focusing in on the Bard and the other one closing the distance between them and Damien, Billy receiving a light wound on the shoulder as he was bitten though Damien managed to weave and avoid the bite and swipes of his own opponent. Brandishing his blade, it crackled with the power of thunder before he stabbed it into the ground, a fifteen foot cube of thunderous energy blasting outward and enveloping the Manticore before throwing it backwards through the thorny wall, a roar of pain coming from it before dying down into a bloody gurgle, and it collapsed on the ground outside of the wall, a '9' appearing in his damage counter before being quickly followed by a '40'.

"Tempestatis pati ab ira!"

He called out as he activated the spell Thunderwave, relieved to remove one of the threats so quickly and lower the amount of injuries that were about to be coming his way. Apparently the three who were flying up above did not appreciate him murdering one of their own, as all three began launching their tail spikes at him, nine large and sharp objects of death. Not eager to be pierced by any of those, he formed a Shield around him, the barrier of invisible force succeeding in stopping all of them thankfully. Behind him, he didn't know what Billy was doing, he couldn't hear anything they were doing or saying, oddly enough, and he was too focused on his own enemies to look at them. Billy was casting Dissonant Whispers, and only the Manticore it was directed towards could hear it.

"Qui mortem melodiam."

As the spell took hold, the large beast had nowhere to go but through the thorn wall, being forced to move as far away as it possibly could from the Bard, turning tail and charging through the painful thorns that ripped into it and left it barely standing on shaking legs. As the spell wore off and it attempted to leap into the air, it stumbled and caught its leg on the top of the thorn wall, the limb getting shredded and blood gushing everywhere, a weak screech of pain leaving it as it fell lifelessly from the sky and hit the ground with a loud thud. Turning to the three now circling above them in the sky, he unleashed a Ray of Sickness and struck one of them in the chest, he saw the green spread across their body, which hopefully meant they failed to resist it. As another nine spikes came flying for him, he was quick to cast another Shield, which deflected the barrage that would've made him a pincushion, except for one. It ripped through the barrier and slammed into his left hip, shredding flesh and bone on its way through him before burying into the ground, searing hot pain burning through him and his health counter dropping by '19', effectively half his health in a single attack.

'Did that thing just fucking crit?!'

Turning just in time to see their new ally suffer this injury, Billy winced in sympathy as his eyes widened in concern. Quickly, they extended a hand and placed it on his hip, careful not to aggravate the wound further, and called out the words for their spell.

"Fac me plagis cecidit tactus."

Even though he had never had to use the words so far, always casting it innately, he recognized it pretty easily as Cure Wounds. Appreciative of the pain lessening considerably, almost entirely removed as his health ticked up by '14', he heard the Bard speak to him.

"You can do this, bud, you're pretty badass and I have faith in you."

**You have received a Bardic Inspiration**

It was pretty nice, the sensation of being magically gifted inspiration, the confidence that swelled inside of you, alongside his knowledge that he could bolster one of his attempts when he really wanted it to succeed. What he had planned wouldn't need it, or be capable of applying it he was pretty sure, but it was a nice fallback for whenever he needed to engage into melee or use one of his other spells. Not taking his eyes off of the flying bastards above him, he spoke to his friend beside him, while beginning to prepare a spell.

"Try to wound the one I hit with my spell before, I have a plan."

Willing forth his Shield again, the flurry of nine spikes were successfully deflected this time, much to his relief, and Billy didn't hesitate or waste time questioning his plan, quickly casting the most powerful Dissonant Whispers that he could. Damien couldn't hear the spell be triggered, but he saw the Manticore flinch and begin turning to flee, which was his sign to release the spell that he had been building up. Focusing on the wounded one and thrusting his hands upward, he called out the words as he released Sleep.

"In somnum a me sermo!"

Using a second level casting, the magic took hold and overwhelmed the wounded beast, drowsiness quickly weighing it down and pulling it into unconsciousness, promptly plummeting through the air and falling right on top of the thorn wall. It didn't even have time to wake up or make any sort of noise, the thorns shredding it apart and its rough impact with the ground finishing it. That left them with two unharmed enemies, who were clearly growing very agitated with the death of each of their allies. Damien wasn't sure what level his friend translated into, so he wasn't sure how many more spells they could cast, but he was down to his last two, a single slot for first and second each, so he was beginning to grow concerned. Not wanting to waste one of those, he instead used his new cantrip, a small mote of fire forming in his hand as he called out "Adolebitque hostibus meis", before he sent it flying at one of the two, or attempting to at least, watching with shock as it instead scraped the edge of the wall of thorns and set it ablaze.

"Oh, fuck."

The fire was quick to spread, and soon a wall of fire now surrounded them instead, the heat not being very pleasant but not bothering him quite as much due to his racial resistance, though the same couldn't be said for his friend. The smoke obscured them from view, at least, giving them some cover from the damned abominations that were still trying to turn them into meals. As six of their spikes came flying through the smoke, three of them managed to hit Billy, not harming him too badly but still not feeling very pleasant.

"Well shit, bud, this is really starting to be a pain in the ass. Pretty shitty, but we'll still kill those motherfuckers."

Just as he was about to cast a spell, Damien got an idea, his eyes going wide as he turned to look at him quickly.

"If you can, turn me invisible, quick!"

Giving him a questioning look, the Bard figured that his last idea worked out just fine, so he didn't doubt him and played a different tune instead, casting Greater Invisibility since he no longer had to focus on Wall of Thorns, the fire taking care of that.

"Veterascet a visum mundi."

Invisible, Damien was free to summon his wings, taking to the air and flying up through the smoke, a brief displacement the only evidence of his passing. Since the flying beasts had been staying at a height of about fifty feet, he was able to reach them, flying above one of them and hovering right above their back, spending his last first level slot on Thunderwave. The cube of thunderous energy exploded downward and sent them flying downwards, an '8' showing in his damage counter as he watched them spiral and flail, falling all the way to the ground, right into the ring of fire below. The fire burned it alive, the fall damage not doing them any favors either, leaving them with just the one Manticore who was still unharmed at the moment. Having a rough location for where he was at thanks to his spell, they shot three spikes at him, one cutting through his left shoulder for '8' points of damage, but he wasn't the one focusing on the spell so he could manage, even if it hurt a fucking lot.

Not able to do much from the ground while he was focusing on keeping his friend invisible, Billy could only wait and see if the last one would be knocked into the ground like the one before it, while wondering how exactly his friend had managed to reach them in the first place. Meanwhile, Damien had decided on a completely stupid idea to try and finally finish off this final enemy, flying another sixty feet into the air, positioning himself straight above the Manticore. Knowing that this was about to really hurt, he triggered Second Wind and healed for a nice '6' points, before dropping from the sky, blade held with the tip pointed down and above his head. Just before he slammed into the beast, he drove the sword down into it with all his strength, dealing an amazing '65' points of damage which let him know that he had definitely gotten a critical hit, and that his idea of adding momentum damage had not only worked, but The Game had generously allowed it to also be doubled with his critical hit. Judging by the '19' points of damage he had suffered, he had only taken the normal fall damage thankfully, and as he grit his teeth and tried his best to stabilize himself, he rode their corpse down to the ground, going with the flow the best he could.

When they hit the ground and began to roll forward, he jumped off to the side and did a tuck and roll, very grateful to see that he had avoided any further damage. Taking a guess that they had won, Billy dropped the invisibility on his crazy ass friend and cast Fly on himself, rising up out of the flaming circle and setting down in front of Damien before laughing.

"You're insane, you know that? Damn, I can't believe you managed to take them down in one shot! I knew you were badass, bud! But how about we get back to camp and rest up, before something else comes at us? You seem pretty exhausted."

Giving a nod of agreement, he couldn't find any reason to disagree, sheathing his weapon and turning to walk back to camp before the world went grey around him, the screen displaying something that made him feel pretty happy after all his pain and panic.

**Encounter Complete!**

2v5

Adjusted experience: 4,375

Gestalt: 2,188

Creative solutions: +327

Progress: 4,853/6,500

**Level up!**

He had more than doubled his experience, as he damn well should have, even if it was very disappointing that he lost half of his experience due to Billy being there instead of him going at it solo. But, without Billy he definitely wouldn't have survived so he got over it pretty quickly, letting out a low sigh before focusing on his screen. It was time to choose his new spells, roll his new health, and finally pick his first feat. He had put a lot of thought into it, and he was confident in his decision. He was going to go with...

* * *

**AN**: And there we have it, chapter three all finished and out there for you all, my lovely fans! It makes me happy each time I see that someone else has added this story to their favorite and/or followed list, and hopefully I get even more people who review and enjoy my story. I'd also like to remind everyone that the encounter, the number of enemies, the attack rolls, everything like that is completely random, and I even throw in some flavor rolls, like when he killed the bandits and was trying to not break under the weight and guilt of killing another person. Sorry if the quality thinned near the end, I was awake until about 3 AM last night trying to finish the actual chapter and it's 9 AM now as I'm writing this author's note. But onto some other fun stuff, that I hope you all will enjoy!

That fun little Bard who's now accompanying our favorite Nephalem is a character based on my uncle, who read my story and requested that I make him a character in my story, so I worked with him to teach him a little bit of D&D and made his character together with him. If any of you would like to have a character in the story, whether it be an ally to assist him or travel with him, an enemy to overcome in the future, or just an important figure in the world like a legendary smith or the leader of a group of heroes, send me that in a review or a PM and I'll work with you! There are some characters I already have created, like the leader(s) or the Paladin and Cleric organizations, and the King and Queen of Grandus, but I do have an adventurer's guild in each capital that I haven't made leaders for yet, so if you're curious about the guilds and want to make the leader for one of them, send me a PM and I'll give you the information on the guilds!

Now on to the reviews I got!

merendinoemiliano: Thank you, I hope you enjoyed the fights in this chapter as well. Being a Fighter/Wizard, Damien is going to be really good at stabbing and exploding things with magic, and combining the two. But other characters, like Monks, will be using Ki and Martial Arts, and stuff like that. I'm not personally experienced with that, so I may not be the best at describing the use of martial arts, but I'll try to make it sound exciting. It'll be interesting to handle the description of how Ki is used, though.

DG2: I won't be doing any major skips forward, since D&D is very focused on growth towards the next level, but I won't be purposely drawing anything out excessively long. A few days here and there, like in this chapter, but this isn't a system where you really grind skills, everything is pretty static except for your proficiency modifier bumping once every four levels and your ASI's to take a feat or bump your stats. Aside from developing a Signature Ability or spending a long ass time with a teacher to learn a new skill proficiency or toolset, there's not much he can do but work towards a level up. I would be rushing the story too much if I just gave him a bunch of levels during a time skip, and that's no fun, so I hope you understand. But his first levels will be quicker than the rest, since he's lower level and needs less experience per level at the moment, especially when I roll nearly max on the encounter die and five Manticore jump him.

Well, that's everything for this chapter! I hope everyone enjoyed, please leave a review and let me know what you think, and I'll do my best to get out chapter four as quickly as I can. At the bottom of next chapter I'll add his updated character sheet, with his new feat, spells, and all of that. I also added links for Krestin and Talula to the bottom of my profile page, just remove the spaces in the links. I can't provide a picture for Billy, so apologies for that.


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